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ORIGIN  AND  EVOLUIION  OF  ETHICS 


WERE  MORAL  LAWS  SUPERNATURALLY 
REVEALED,  OR  ARE  THEY  PRODUCTS  OF 
HUMAN    EXPERIENCE  AND    EVOLUTION? 


BY  SINGLETON   WATERS  DAVIS,  M.  D.,  LL  D. 

Jluthor  of"  The  Scientific  Dispensaiton,"  "A  Future  Life  ?  "  etc.,  and 
Editor  of  "  The  Humanitarian  Review." 


LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  : 

THE   HUMANITARIAN    REVIEW  PUBLISHING   HOUSE, 

NO.  854  E.  FIFTY-FOURTH  STREET. 

1910 


^1 


.-^ 


^-/'-'>'- 


ORIGIN  AND  EVOLUTION  OF  ETHICS 


WERE  MORAL  LAWS  SUPERNATURALLY 
REVEALED,  OR  ARE  THEY  PRODUCTS  OF 
HUMAN    EXPERIENCE  AND    EVOLUTION? 


BY   SINGLETON   WATERS  DAVIS,  M.  D.,  LL.  D. 

jluthoT  of"  The  Scientific  Dispensalic^,"  "A  Future  Life?  "  etc.,  and 
Editor  of  "  The  Humanitarian  Review." 


LOS  ANGELES.  CALIFORNIA  : 

THE   HUMANITARIAN    REVIEW   PUBLISHING   HOUSE. 

NO.  854  E.  FIFTY-FOURTH  STREET. 

1910 


V 

I 


git:-  ■ 


f 


Printed  al  the  Office  of 

The   Humanitarian   Review 

854  E.  54th  St. 

Los  Angeles,  California. 


I 


PREFACE 


tflj  In  the  first  place,  1  must  say  that  this  little  book  does  not  cover 
^il  ••■  all  of  the  ground  at  first  intended.  It  was  written  in  installments 
month  after  month,  under  constraint  of  far  too  much  other  work,  for  pub- 
lication in  The  Humanitarian  Review,  and  it  grew  to  far  greater  length 
than  1  had  at  first  proposed  to  make  it  before  the  discussion  reached 
anothei  branch  of  the  subject  that  was  included  in  the  original  pros- 
pectus of  the  work  laid  out  by  the  author.  This  was  the  subject  of  the 
ethics  of  brute  or  sub-human  life  as  a  substratum  of  the  higher  human 
ethics,  which  may  yet  be  presented  in  another  booklet. 

This  work  will  not  be  liked  by  those  who  read  merely  for  entertain- 
ment or  the  intellectual  intoxication  that  comes  from  sensational  litera- 
ture, but  to  the  thoughtful,  meditative  man  who  is  individualistic  and 
independent  enough  to  think  for  himself,  and  who  is  intellectually  free 
enough  from  prejudice  to  think  logically,  1  believe  it  will  not  appear  to 
be  "dry"  reading,  but  useful  and   rationally   entertaining. 

Singleton  W.  Davis. 
Los  Angeles,  Cai,  Dec.  20,  1910. 


CONTENTS 


§   1.  Introductory. — The  Ideas  of  Ancient  Sages  :  Hamurabi,  Socrates  5-16 
ij  2.  Ideas  of  Ancient  Sages  (continued)  :  The  Cynics  and  Cy- 

renaics     Aristotle,  et  al.    I  7-24 
S  3.  The  Stoics:   Zeno,  et  al.  ......  25-28 

S  4.  The  Epicureans :  Epicurus,  Plotinus,         ....         29-33 

§  5.  Views  of  Mediaeval  Scholastics:  St.  Bernard,  et  al.      -  -       34-36 

§  6.  Views  of  Modern  Moral  Philosophers  :  Hobbes,  Cumber- 
land, Cudworth,  Clarke,  Locke,  Price,  Butler,  Hutche- 
son,  Hume,  Adam  Smith,  Hartley,  Dugald  Stewart, 
Paley,  Thomas  Brown,  Bentham,  Mackintosh,  James 
Mill,  Whewell,  John  Stuart  Mill,  Bailey,  Kant,  -  -       37-93 

§  7.  Views  of  Ethical  Evolutionists:    Herbert  Spencer,         -         94-149 
§  8.  Views  of  Ethical  Evolutionists  of  Today  :  C.  A.  Stephens, 

J.  Howard  Moore    149-157 
J;  9.  Ethical  Culture  and  Evolution— Conclusion,         -  -  157-161 


TY 


THE  ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF  ETHICS. 

Were  Moral  Laws  Supernaturally  Revealed,  or  are  they  Products 
of  Human  Experience  and  Evolution  ? 

SECTION    I.  " 

INTRODUCTORY—THE  IDEAS  OF  ANCIENT  SAGES. 

IN  A  series  of  short  papers,  I  propose  to  publish  in  The 
Humanitarian  Review  a  somew^hat  elaborate  discussion  of 
the  old  questions  of  the  origin  of  the  "  moral  sense,"  and  of 
moral  laws,  and  the  means  best  adapted  to  moral  culture  and 
the  repression  of  immorality.  Some  time  ago  I  printed  in  The 
Review  a  very  brief  series  of  articles  on  "The  Nature-Basis  of 
Ethics,"  which  attracted  rather  more  than  usual  attention  and 
met  with  quite  general  approbation  of  advanced  thinkers ;  but 
now,  while  I  may,  unavoidably,  make  some  repetitions  of  what 
was  said  therem,  I  shall  aim  to  treat  the  subjects  of  the  main 
theme  and  its  minor  associated  ones  in  a  wider,  and  more  com- 
prehensive and  thorough  manner. 

THE  IDEAS  OF  ANCIENT  SAGES. 

Before  entering  upon  a  discussion  of  this  subject  from  a 
modern  science  point  of  view,  I  deem  it  advisable  to  set  forth 
briefly  the  ideas  or  "  doctrines  "  of  some  of  the  most  erudite  and 


Note. — The  matter  of  this  booklet  was  first  published  in  The  Humani- 
tarian Review,  of  Los  Angeles,  Cal.,  beginning  in  No.  2  of  Vol.  vii — Aug., 
1908.  In  order  to  supply  additional  demands  for  the  articles  in  a  more 
permanent  form,  they  are  herein  reproduced. — Author. 


6  THE  ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

famous  of  the  ancient  or  older  sages  and  philosophers. 

There  is  monumental  evidence  in  Egypt  that  the  people  of 
that  weird  and  wonderful  country  of  the  dead  past  quite  fully 
and  clearly  conceived  of  and  observed  in  their  social  relations 
well-defined  rules  of  moral  conduct  that  they  were  in  posses- 
sion of  a  "moral  code"  as  explicit  and  as  binding  upon  them  as 
any  the  world  possesses  to-day,  even  in  Christendom,  from 
prehistoric  times — from  more  than  1 2,000  years  ago  up  to  the 
time  of  the  downfall  of  Egypt's  ancient  civilization,  magnificence 
and  splendor.  For,  though  that  civilization  was  not  the  same, 
in  many  particulars,  as  our  so-called  civilization,  and  though  that 
magnificence  and  splendor  was  of  a  kind  which  modern  tastes 
do  not,  as  a  rule,  appreciate,  it  Was  a  civilization,  it  was  magnifi- 
cent and  it  was  splendid,  when  viewed  from  a  high,  disinterested, 
self-abnegating  standpoint.  The  evidences  of  the  moral  stand- 
ard and  practice  in  prehistoric  Egypt  (and  other  parts  of  the  old 
world)  are  sufficient  to  convince  the  scientist  who  accepts  the 
laws  of  evolution  as  of  universal  dominion  ;  for,  as  he  finds  at 
the  very  dawn  of  history  a  well-defined  moral  code  and  a  con- 
scientious practice  of  moral  rules  to  have  been  in  existence,  he  is 
bound  to  infer  that  for  many  long  preceding  ages  a  moral  code, 
though  possibly  inferior,  was  in  existence  in  the  valley  of  the 
Nile  and  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  as  well  as  elsewhere. 
That  it  germinated  in  the  very  embryotic  condition  of  that  civil- 
ization and  gradually  and  slowly  (and  consequently  for  ages)  was 
developed  up  to  its  acme  or  zenith,  which  in  Egypt  was  probably 
at  about  the  time  of  the  building  of  the  Great  ["'yramid  and  its 
most  splendid  temples  and  tombs. 

In  Assyria  and  Babylonia,  a  moral  code  was  in  existence  as 
long  ago  as  we  have  any  evidence  that  the  valleys  of  the  Tigris 
and  Euphrates,  and  adjoining  hill-country,  were  inhabited  by  the 
Semites,  who  probably  migrated  from  the  oases  of  the  Arabian 
desert  country  in  which  their  moral  code  probably  originated 
and  was  quite  highly  evolved. 

But,  for  my  present  purposes,  1  shall  refer  specifically  only 
to  the  philosophies  and  ethical  doctrines  of  men  of  comparatively 


THE  ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION  OF   ETHICS  7 

more  modeiTi  times,  yet,  to  our  day,  comparatively  ancient, 
beginning  with 

HAMURABI. 

To  whom  !  will  only  briefly  refer  as  being  the  real  immediate 
predecessor  of  the  ethical  teachers  of  the  Hebrews  or  Jews,  as 
allegorically  set  forth  in  the  Old  Testament  scriptures  chiefly  as 
Moses,  the  mythical  sun-god  of  Winter, — the  sun  in  the  zodiacal 
sign  jJquarius.  As  to  the  evidence  of  this,  I  will  not  only  refer 
the  reader  to  works  recording  the  discovery  and  rendering  the 
translation  of  the  famous  clay  tablet  inscriptions,  but  to  the  writings 
of  Assyriologists  in  general  and  to  the  recent  lectures  of  Delitsch 
on  "  Babel  and  Bible,"  etc.  Whether  King  Hamurabi  was  a  real 
blood  and  bone  man  himself  or  only  a  myth,  to  whom  the 
makers  of  the  monuments  ascribed  the  reception  from  their  god 
of  their  moral  and  political  code,  it  matters  not,  as  the  inscriptions 
and  the  symbolical  pictures  plainly  prove  that  the  moral  code  of 
those  peoples  was  in  existence  before  the  time  ascribed  by  theo- 
logians to  the  writing  of  the  Pentateuch  by  Moses;  and  the  very 
great  similarity  of  the  laws  of  Hamurabi,  as  recorded,  as  well  as 
the  current  myth-stories  of  his  age,  with  the  decalogue  and  the 
so-called  biblical  history  of  the  ancient  Hebrews  (real  myth 
stories,  however),  proved  incontrovertibly  that  the  Jewish  code, 
as  well  as  their  "  history,"  was  borrowed  from  the  Assyrio-Baby- 
lonians  or  Chaldeans,  and  "  edited  "  to  make  them  assimilable 
by  the  Hebrew  people. 

SOKRATES  (OR  SOCRATES). 

is  the  first  great  name  in  the  history  of  modern-ancient 
philosophy,  whose  teachings  have  come  down  (or  up)  to  us  in 
w^hat  is  almost  universally  accepted  as  authentic  writings.  Soc- 
rates, as  usually  reckoned,  lived  from  469  to  399  B.  C.  He  was 
not  directly  an  author,  but  a  conversational  philosopher  whose 
teachings  were  recorded,  more  or  less  perfectly  by  his  disciples 
or  students,  as  is  plainly  imitated  by  the  four  evangelists  of  the 
New  Testament  in  their  records  of  the  "  life  "  and  teachings  of 
Jesus. 

Xenophon   and   Plato,  themselves   celebrated  philosophers 


8  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

later,  were  the  men  who  recorded  the  views,  and,  professedly,  m 
many  cases,  the  language  of  Socrates.  .Xenophon  undertook  to 
vindicate  the  character  of  Socrates  and  the  correctness  of  his 
philosophy  against  the  accusations  and  sophistries  that  led  to  his 
tragic  death.  Plato,  so  far  as  his  writings  are  expositions  of  the 
philosophy  of  Socrates,  wrote  the  Apologie,  the  Kriton  and  the 
'Phsdon.  In  the  first  is  chiefly  elucidated  the  methods  of  Socrates 
and  "  sets  forth  his  moral  attitude."  In  the  Kriton  Plato  describes 
a  conversation  between  Socrates  and  his  friend  Kriton  only  two 
days  before  his  death  ;  and  in  the  'PhceJon  is  recorded  a  conver- 
sation on  "  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul."  also  represented  as 
taking  place  only  a  short  time  previous  to  his  death. 

As  Hamurabi  is  represented  as  receiving  the  "law"  from  his 
god,  and  Moses  the  same,  so  Socrates  is  reputed  to  have  "brought 
philosophy  down  from  heaven  to  earth"  a  saying  that  to  this 
day  is  proverbial.  He  discussed  man  and  his  social  relations 
and  protested  against  the  tendencies  of  other  philosophers  to 
enquire  into  causes  and  laws  of  other  natural  phenomena,  as  the 
constitution  of  the  Kosmos,  or  universe,  the  nature  and  move- 
ments of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  of  winds,  storms,  etc.,  which 
he  called  "  divine  things,"  and  besides  being  sacrilege  to  discuss 
them,  he  thought  an  understanding  of  them,  even  if  gained, 
would  be  useless  to  man — evidently  a  view  far  in  the  rear  of 
modern  science  progress. 

Socrates  was,  then,  radically  and  extremely,  even  narrowly, 
utilitarian  and  practical.  He  thought  the  relations  of  man  with 
man  and  the  varieties  of  conduct  between  them,  were  the  only 
matters  within  the  legitimate  domain  of  philosophic  inquiry  and 
reach  of  human  knowledge,  and  the  only  knowledge,  when 
gained,  capable  of  yielding  to  man  useful  results. 

Socrates  is  said  to  be  the  first  of  the  moderately  ancient 
philosophers  to  give  ethics  a  scientific  form  and  foundation, 
chiefly  by  his  showing  thai  it  had  an  "end"  and  a  "theory"  or 
system  of  principles  from  which  are  deducible  moral  precepts 
and  means,  and  that  it  was  practical,  utilitarian  or  nothing.  A 
suggestion  of  what  he  meant  by  the  "end"  of  ethics,  though 
never  by  him   given  a  formal   statement,  may  be  had   from   such 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  9 

expressions  of  his  as  "  the  science  of  human  happiness,"  "the  art 
of  behaving  in  society,"  etc.  He  seems  to  be  somewhat  incon- 
sistent, as  viewed  from  the  records  of  Xenophon  and  Plato. 
The  former  represents  Socrates'  statements  of  the  end  to  be  "an 
independent  reference  to  the  happiness  of  others — altruism;  by 
Plato  he  is  represented  and  is  made  to  speak  as  though  he  consid- 
ered the  agent's  own  happiness  was  the  chief  or  only  end,  to 
which  the  happiness  of  others  was  a  valuable  and  indispensable 
means.  To  me,  these  views  may  both  be  justified  by  nature  and 
science.  For,  reduced  to  the  last  analysis,  all  altruistic  effort  is 
conscious  effort  for  the  good  of  others,  prompted  by  unconscious 
motives  of  the  good  of  the  "agent  "  or  actor.  Just  as  we  eat, 
consciously,  to  satisfy  our  appetite — desire  for  food,  but  uncon- 
sciously to  replenish  the  bodily  waste  or  to  supply  means  of 
bodily  growth. 

Socrates  had  a  well-defined  "doctrine  "  of  ethics  to  the  effect 
that  "  knowledge  is  virtue  and  ignorance  or  folly  is  vice."  He 
taught  that  "  to  do  right  was  the  only  way  to  impart  or  acquire 
happiness,  or  the  least  degree  of  unhappiness  compatible  with 
any  given  situation  " — one's  environment.  He  contended  that 
this  was  precisely  what  everyone  wished  for  and  aimed  at — only 
that  many  persons,  from  ignorance,  took  the  wrong  road  ;  and  no 
man  was  wise  enough  to  alwa\)S  take  the  right. "  And  "as  no  man 
was  willingly  his  own  enemy,  so  no  man  ever  did  wrong 
willingly,"  but  "  because  he  was  not  fully  or  correctly  informed 
of  the  consequences  of  his  own  actions ;  so  that  the  proper 
remedy  to  apply  was  enlarged  teaching  of  consequences  and  im- 
proved judgment.  " 

He  taught  that  rvell-doing  was  the  summum  bonum,  and  his 
ideal  pursuit  for  man  was  that  of  virtue, — "the  noble  and  praise- 
worthy."  That  "  well-doing  consisted  in  doing  well  whatever  a 
man  undertook, "  and  "  the  best  man,"  he  said,  "and  the  most 
beloved  of  the  gods,  is  he  that,  as  a  husbandman,  performs  well 
the  duties  of  husbandry;  as  a  surgeon,  the  duties  of  the  medical 
art,  in  political  life,  his  duty  toward  the  commonwealth."  And 
he  adds  that  "  the  man  who  does  nothing  well  is  neither  useful 
nor  agreeable  to  the  gods." 


10  THE  ORIGIN   AND  EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

This  latter  expression  shows  plainly  that  the  ethics  of 
Socrates  was  an  element  of  a  religion,  just  as  the  ethics  of  a  Chris- 
tian are  considered  by  him  as  an  element  of  Christianity.  Yet 
the  connection,  in  the  mind  of  Socrates,  between  ethics  and  the- 
ology, is  said  to  have  been  "  very  slender. "  He  excluded,  in  his 
distinction  between  the  "divine"  and  the  "human,"  the  "arbitrary 
will  of  the  gods  from  human  affairs — from  those  things  that  con- 
stituted the  ethical  end." 

Yet  he  maintained  a  pious  and  reverential  state  of  his  own 
mind,  and  taught  that  men  should,  after  patient  study  or  medi- 
tation, "consult  the  oracles  by  which  the  gods,  in  cases  of  diffi- 
culty, graciously  signified  their  intentions  and  their  beneficent 
care  of  the  race."  And  in  this  view  "the  practice  of  well-doing 
was  prompted  by  reference  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  gods  " — 
and  "in-so-far  as  the  gods  administered  the  world  in  a  right 
spirit,  they  would  show  favor  to  the  virtuous" — a  real  theological 
or  religious  doctrine. 

In  his  practical  precepts  he  inculcated  self-denial  to  curb  or 
restrain  excessive  human  desire  and  sensuous  ambition,  and 
urged  that  self-improvement,  performance  of  duty,  rather  than 
"indulgences,  honors  and  worldly  advancement"  yielded  pleasures 
or  happiness.  He  said  that  the  first  aim  of  his  life  was  to  impart 
to  man  the  shock  of  his  consciousness  of  ignorance;  and  that 
the  second  aim  is  to  "  reproach  men  for  pursuing  wealth  and 
glory  more  than  wisdom  and  virtue."  In  the  Krilon  he  is 
recorded  as  saying  that  iDe  are  never  to  act  wrongly  or  unjustly)- 
although  others  are  unjust  to  us.  And  here  we  find  the  sayings 
ascribed  to  Jesus,  that  we  should  "  love  our  enemies,"  "  return 
good  for  evil,"  and  like  sentiments,  in  spirit  if  not  in  word,  very 
orderly  set  forth  by  Socrates  more  than  three  hundred  and  fifty 
years  previous  to  the  time  ascribed  to  the  life  of  Jesus. 

Socrates  furnished  in  his  own  life  the  most  consistent  and 
wonderful  faithfulness  in  the  practice  of  the  principles  he  taught, 
even  to  the  point  of  self-sacrifice  of  his  noble  life. 

PLATO. 

This  philosopher  lived  from  427  to  347  B.  C,  partly  con- 
temporaneous with  Socrates;  and  his  ideas  of  ethics  were  similar 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  II 

to  those  of  Socrates,  both,  doubtless,  only  expressing  in  a  superior 
manner,  as  only  genius  can,  the  already  current  ideas  of  morality 
in  logical  order  and  methodical  arrangement  of  coincident  princi- 
ples, together  with,  perhaps,  some  small  portion  of  new  or  original 
thought  on  che  subject  initiated  in  the  brain  of  one  or  the  other 
of  them,  but  recorded  by  Plato  only. 

Plato  wrote  no  single  work  on  ethics  as  such.  His  ethical 
doctrines  are  to  be  picked  up  here  and  there  throughout  many  of 
his  voluminous  works  under  various  titles.  In  his  Apologie, 
Kriton  and  Eulhyphron,  he  only,  or  chiefly,  reflects  the  ethical 
philosophy  of  his  master,  Socrates — for,  though  Plato  was  the 
elder  of  the  two,  he  was  the  acknowledged  pupil  of  Socrates. 

Plato's  own  views,  the  philosophy  of  moral  conduct  that 
may  be  properly  called  Platonian,  is  incidentally  set  forth  in 
'Dialogues  and  incorporated  with  his  elucidations  of  his  philo- 
sophical method,  his  theory  of  ideas  and  of  man's  social  rela- 
tions. His  Dialogues  are  Socratic  ;  that  is,  in  them  he  adopted 
in  his  writing  the  conversational  method  of  Socrates,  and  largely 
his  ideas.  This  he  called  "  Dialectics,"  or  the  "Method  of 
Debate."  His  method  of  searching  for  philosophic  truth,  also, 
was  Socratic  ;  that  is,  by  apparently  only  searching  for  and  discus- 
sing the  meaning  or  exact  definition  of  the  principle  terms  used  in 
philosophic  discussion.  Among  these  were  Virtue,  Courage, 
Holiness,  Temperance,  Justice,  Law,  Beauty  (aesthetics),  Knowl- 
edge, Rhetoric,  etc. 

In  treating  of  Justice  or  The  Just,  Plato,  after  the  manner  of 
Socrates,  first  exposes  the  indefinite  notions  popular  among  his 
less  erudite  contemporaries,  and  then  sets  forth  the  idea  that  the 
Just  is  not  only  expedient  but  honorable  and  good,  and  to  this 
adds  that  it  is  "  the  cause  of  happiness  to  the  just  man."  He 
also  commends  Justice  and  Temperance,  and  not  wealth  and 
political  power,  as  the  only  conditions  upon  which  depend  human 
happiness. 

In  treating  of  goodness,  or  The  Good,  Plato  seems  to  be 
more  original  and  expresses  his  personal  arguments  and  conclu- 
sions. He  considered  that  health,  money,  the  family,  etc.,  were 
"  good,"  but  only  in  connection  with  another  "  good, "  the  sl^ill  to 


12  THE  ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

use  these  things  properly  to  bring  about  the  supreme  end,  hap- 
piness. He  thought  that  all  knowledge  was  not  useful,  and  that 
men  are  principally  benefitted  by  knowing  the  good  and  the 
profitable.  He  calls  this  the  "  Knowledge  of  the  Good,  or 
Reason,"  by  which  he  means  a  "just  discrimination  and  com- 
parative appreciation  of  ends  and  means." 

An  ethical  doctrine  peculiar,  apparently,  to  both  Socrates 
and  Plato,  is  that  of  the  identity  of  virtue  and  knowledge ;  that 
the  intellectual  element  of  human  conduct  was  paramount.  For 
instance,  Plato  thought  it  better  to  be  able  to  tell  the  truth  if  one 
chooses  to  do  so,  than  to  be  unable  though  disposed  to  do  so- 
That  is,  briefly,  knowledge  is  more  valuable  than  good  disposi- 
tion. 

Law,  he  considered  as  having  no  authority  but  the  arbitrary 
edict  of  a  wise,  ideal  man. 

So  of  virtue :  it  is  brought  out  in  the  discussion  that  it  is 
resolvable  into  the  chief  or  supreme  "desideratum  of  the  know- 
ledge of  good  and  evil" — also  determinable  by  the  ideal  "  one 
wise  man."  So  of  temperance ;  as  one  of  the  virtues,  he 
considers  it  to  be  good  and  beneficial,  but  under  the  supreme 
knowledge  or  science  of  good  and  evil.  In  his  conversational 
discussion  of  the  meaning  of  temperance,  he  considers  various 
definitions  of  the  term  but  does  not  formally  adopt  any  of 
them. 

In  treating  of  Friendship,  or  Love,  identified  by  him,  Plato's 
chief  conclusion  is  that  its  ultimate  end  is  Good.  In  relation  to 
Plato's  discussion  of  this  virtue  in  his  Lysis,  Prof.  Alexander  Bain 
says :  "  The  subject  is  one  of  special  interest  in  ancient  ethics,  as 
being  one  of  the  aspects  of  Benevolent  Sentiment  in  the  Pagan 
World." 

In  Plato's  dialogue  entitled  Menon,  may  be  found  the  most 
exclusively  ethical  expression  of  the  views  of  Socrates  and  him- 
self, and  it  is  definitely  devoted  to  a  discussion  of  the  question, 
"  Is  Virtue  Teachable  ?  "  They  resolve  virtue,  as  usual,  into  the 
supreme  virtue.  Knowledge,  or  that  it  is  "a  mode  of  knowledge," 
good  and  profitable.  They  distinguish  this  Virtue-Knowledge 
from    Right   Opinion,   which    they   consider   a  kind    of    "  quasi- 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  13 

knowledge,  the  knowledge  of  esteemed  and  useful  citizens,"  but 
which  "  cannot  be  the  highest  know^ledge,  since  these  citizens  fail 
to  impart  it  even  to  their  own  sons"  ! 

In  the  same  Dialogue  Plato  gives  his  view  of  Immortality, 
which  is  that  both  pre-existence  (ante-birth),  and  post-existence 
(after  death),  are  facts.  By  his  doctrine  of  pre-existence,  he  ex- 
plained the  possession  of  general  notions  which  antecede  those 
acquired  through  sense  perception  ;  or,  as  some  scientists  say,  of 
inherited  ideas. 

In  Protagoras,  Plato  represents  Socrates  in  a  very  important 
conversation  with  Protagoras,  in  the  Socratic  manner  and  upon 
his  favorite  ethical  theme — the  question,  "  Is  Virtue  Teachable  ?  " 
Socrates  doubts,  and  then  Protagoras  addresses  him  in  an  attempt 
to  show  bow  virtue  is  taught  by  the  practice  of  society  in  approv- 
ing, condemning,  rewarding  and  punishing  "  individuals  for  their 
actions.  Protagoras,  as  a  philosopher,  a  Sophist,  falls  short  in 
his  proofs  on  these  grounds,  and  Socrates  puts  questions  to  him 
in  order  to  bring  out  the  correct  definition  of  virtue,  so  that 
Protagoras  is  so  far  defeated  that  he  is  driven  to  admit  that 
"  Pleasure  is  the  only  good.  Pain  the  only  evil,  and  that  the  sci- 
ence of  Good  and  Evil  consists  in  Measuring,  and  in  choosing 
between,  conflicting  pleasures  and  pains — preferring  the  greater 
pleasure  to  the  less,  the  less  pain  to  the  greater."  Though  Plato 
frequently  recurs  to  his  doctrine  of  "  Measurement,"  he  every- 
where else  but  here  applies  it  in  general  to  actions  from  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil,  and  does  not  again  specifically  refer  to 
the  theory  that  man  is  consciously  thus  to  measure  pleasures  and 
pains,  either  of  himself  or  of  others. 

In  his  book,  or  "  Dialogue,"  Qorgias,  Plato  sets  forth  his  own 
ethical  ideas  more  explicitly  than  elsewhere.  He  herein  eluci- 
dates the  celebrated  Platonian  doctrine  that  though  men  are 
prompted  to  act  from  a  desire  for  good,  "  it  is  a  greater  evil  to  do 
wrong  than  to  suffer  wrong."  Note  here  that  this  idea,  in  the 
New  Testament,  is  recorded  as  one  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus, 
who,  even  if  we  admit  his  actual  historicity  and  the  accuracy  of 
the  gospels,  is  thus  shown  not  to  have  been  the  originator  of  the 
doctrine,  for  Plato  taught  it  more  than  350  years  previous  to  the 
time  of  Jesus. 


14  THE  ORIGIN   AND  EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

Plato,  in  the  representation  of  a  conversation  of  Socrates 
represents  him  as  expressing  the  really  Platonian  doctrine  that 
the  criminal  or  the  wrong  doer  is  morally  diseased,  and  that  to 
punish  him  is  to  use  means  for  curing  him  of  his  moral  dis- 
order, and  therefore  he  is  a  beneficiary  of  his  own  punishment ; 
and  that  "the  unpunished  wrong-doer  is  more  miserable  than  if 
he  were  punished. "  Plato  herein  represents  Socrates  as  teaching 
that  some  pleasures  are  bad  and  some  pains  are  good — contra- 
dicting his  general  statement,  to  a.  degree,  in  'Protagoras,  that 
pleasure  or  happiness  is  the  only  good. 

In  fact,  the  essence  of  the  doctrine  is  here  asceticism,  and 
self-denial  is  set  forth  as  a  means  to  the  chief  end,  good.  He 
not  only  condemns  all  the  sensuous  or  physical  desires  and 
pleasures,  but  even  all  the  aesthetic  arts  and  means  of  recreation, 
including  "  music  and  poetry,  all  provision  for  the  most  essential 
wants,  all  protection  against  particular  sufferings  and  dangers  — 
even  all  ser^'ice  rendered  to  another  person  in  the  way  of  relief 
or  rescue ;  all  the  effective  maintenance  of  public  organized 
force, '  such  as  ships,  arms  and  armies,  walls,  docks,  etc.  Con- 
tempt is  to  be  had  for  all  desires  of  immediate  satisfaction  or 
relief  from  pain  or  danger.  Herein  enters  a  religious  idea  again 
— the  notion  that  supreme  good  is  supernatural  or  above  the 
things  of  this  world.  (See  Grote's  comments  in  his  Qorgias.) 
Order  and  discipline  are  commended  as  ends  in  themselves 
rather  than  means  to  ends. 

In  the  discussion  of  the  Art  of  Government  is  set  forth  the 
great  Platonic  doctrine  of  "  the  One  Competent  Person,  govern- 
ing absolutely,  by  virtue  of  his  scientific  knowledge,  and  aiming 
at  the  good  and  improvement  of  the  governed."  This  is  a  re- 
statement   of  the  Socratic   idea   of  "a   despotism   annointed    by 

supreme  good  intentions  and  by  ideal  skill."     (See    Bain's  Moral 
Science.) 

In  Philebus,  the  dialogue  on  the  Good,  we  have  Plato's  rep- 
resentation of  the  Socratic  idea  of  the  summum  honum,  which  the 
master  denies  is  mere  pleasure,  but  the  good  must  be  related 
with  intelligence  or  reason,  leading  human  activity  to  proceed 
toward  a  supernatural  or  ideal   result  supposed  to  be  superior  to 


THE   ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  15 

man's  human  enjoyment.  This  is  merely  an  expansion  or 
further  discussion  of  the  religious  phase  of  the  Socratic  idea  of  a 
superior  good  to  be  achieved  by  asceticism  — by  man's  adherence 
to  a  line  of  conduct  that  is  judged,  intellectually,  to  be  right  in  a 
general  sense,  though  it  does  not  lead  to  immediate  pleasure  or 
happiness.  He  thus  makes  Good  a  compound  of  knowledge 
and  pleasure — that  is,  herein  Socrates  sets  forth  philosophically, 
through  Plato's  representation,  the  homely  saying  that  passions 
must  be  controlled  by  reason — in  one  word,  "  self-control,"  im- 
plying "  self-denial  "  of  indulgence  in  that  which  brings  only 
immediate  pleasure. 

Pleasure  is  defined  as  "  the  fundamental  harmony  of  the 
system,"  and  pain  as  the  disturbance  of  this  harmony.  Great 
importance  is  attached  to  quiet  or  tranquil  enjoyment  or  happi- 
ness as  contrasted  with  the  excited  passionate  pleasures  so  much 
sought  after  by  man  in  general,  which  is  considered  to  be  a 
disordered  or  diseased  mental  state.  Such  pleasures  are  delusive 
and  lead  away  from  true,  abiding  happiness.  Yet  pleasure  is 
denied  to  be  the  supreme  end  of  human  action,  because  by  its 
nature  it  is  "  a  change  or  transition. "  And  the  "measure  "  prin- 
ciple is  to  be  applied  which  shall  join  in  proper  proportion  the 
Good  with  the  Beautiful.  The  spirit  of  this  Dialogue  is,  ethic- 
ally, strongly  impregnated  with  asceticism,  and  hence  is  a 
discussion  of  a  religious  rather  than  of  a  moral  question. 

The  ethical  question,  What  is  Justice?  is  discussed  in  The 
Republic,  and  is  answered  by  offering  a  plan  for  a  model  repub- 
lic. And  here  a  contradiction  of  other  important  ethical  state- 
ments of  Socrates  occurs  where  Justice  is  given  one  definition  of 
"rendering  to  every  man  his  due  " — a  homely  definition  now 
familiar  to  most  people  as  a  theory  ;  but  that  definition  was  im- 
mediately amended  by  saying  it  is  "doing  good  to  friends,  evil 
to  enemies  !  "  And  another  of  the  speakers  in  the  discussion 
defines  it  "  the  right  of  the  strongest, " — the  doctrine  we  know  of 
as  "might  is  right.  " 

One  speaker  avers  that  injustice  is  profitable  to  the  actor 
but  evil  to  society,  and  as  society  makes  laws  against  it  and  pun- 
ishes   the   unjust   doer,  justice  is    the  more  profitable      leads  to 


16  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

lesser  evils.  But  Socrates  himself  is  made  by  Plato  to  contend 
against  these  vices  and  falls  back  upon  his  transcendental 
dogma  that  Justice  is  good  in  itself,  insuring  the  happiness  of 
the  doer  by  its  intrinsic  effect  on  his  mind,  and  irrespective  of 
the  exemption  from  the  penalties  of  injustice."  He  even 
advances  the  idea  that  the  State,  in  his  ideal  republic,  "  must 
prescribe  the  religious  belief "  and  allow  nothing  at  variance  with 
the  established  State  creed  ! 

Practically,  in  this  "State  religion,"  Socrates  sets  forth  the 
following  rules  :  "The  gods  must  always  be  set  forth  as  the 
causes  of  good ;  they  must  never  be  represented  as  the  authors 
of  evil,  nor  as  practicing  deceit ; "  neither  must  man  be  repre- 
sented "  as  unjust  yet  happy,  or  just  and  yet  miserable  ;  "  and 
the  poetic  or  literary  representation  of  bad  or  evil  character  is 
forbidden.  In  musical  training  the  mind  is  to  be  led  £o  a  per- 
ception of  the  beautiful ;  and  "  useful  fictions  are  to  be  diffused, 
without  regard  to  truth  " — a  doctrine  acquiesced  in  by  Plato  and 
notably  by  "  St.  Paul, "  as  confessed  by  himself. 


SECTION   II. 

IDEAS  OF  ANCIENT  SAGES- THE  CYNICS  AND  CYRENAICS. 

IMMEDIATELY  arising  out  of  the  ethical  teachings  of 
Socrates  came  two  opposing  sects  or  schools  of  philosophers, 
the  Cynics  and  the  Cyrenaics,  which  later  gradually  passed  with 
little  change,  the  one  into  Stoics  and  the  other  into  Epicureans. 

The  Cynics  were  the  more  orthodox  disciples  of  Socrates, 
and  exemplified  in  their  daily  conduct  his  great  maxim  that  "the 
gods  had  no  wants  and  the  most  god-like  man  was  he  who  ap- 
proached to  the  same  state. "  Their  highest  ideals  were  of 
Socratic  origin  :  "to  subsist  on  the  narrowest  means;  to  acquire 
indifference  to  pain  by  a  discipline  of  endurance  ;  to  despise  all 
the  ordinary  pursuits  of  pleasure,"  etc.  The  most  celebrated  of 
philosophers  of  this  sect  were  Antisthenes  and  Diogenes,  and 
Zeno,  who  became  the  first  Stoic. 

The  Cynical  standard  of  right  and  rong  was  nothing  else 
than  social  authority — laws  and  customs  of  society.  The  Cynics 
did  not  discuss  a  moral  faculty,  the  will,  or  disinterested — altru- 
istic— conduct.  Yet  they  exercised  great  will-power  in  the  form 
of  self-control  and  discipline  for  endurance,  and  they  practiced  a 
high  grade  of  morality  in  that  their  ascetic  principles  and  prac- 
tices prevented  wrong  doing  against  the  property  of  others  and 
the  exercise  of  public  ambition  or  practice  of  personal  vices. 

The  Cynics  set  forth  as  the  compensating  rewards  for  their 
abstemiousness,  habituation  of  pain  and  indifference  as  to  the 
common  enjoyments  of  life,  "exemption  from  fear,  anxiety  and 
disappointments,"  the  satisfaction  of  "pride"  of  the  sense  of 
superiority  to  others  and  their  approximation  to  the  status  of 
the  gods. 

The  name  Cynic  means  dog-like,  and  was  an  epithet  applied 
by  the  opposing  public  which  considered   these  philosophers  to 


18  THE  ORIGIN   AND  EVOLUTION   OF  ETHICS 

be  abusive,  scarcastic  and  contemptuous  and  jeering  toward 
others.  Diogenes  is  the  best  illustration  of  the  peculiar  style  of 
discussion  which  gained  for  the  sect  this  appellation  and  repu- 
tation. While  they  professed  to  despise  pleasure,  their  ideal 
end  of  conduct  was  one's  own  happiness,  and  they  differed 
from  their  opponents,  the  Cyrenaics,  only  in  the  means  to  that 
end. 

The  Cynics  protested  against  most  of  the  approved  usages 
of  society,  religious,  moral  or  secular.  They  were  avowed  "free 
lovers,"  and  took  no  part  in  affairs  of  the  State,  but  were  inclined 
to  practice  communism  both  as  to  property  and  sexual  relations. 

The  Cyreniac  sect  originated  wath  Aristippus,  another  con- 
temporary and  follower  of  Socrates.  In  Xenophons  Memorabilia 
is  set  forth  his  conversations  of  Socrates.  He  is  reputed  to  have 
been  the  first  philosopher  to  avow  that  pleasure  and  the  absence  of 
pain  were  the  direct  and  sole  end  of  human  conduct  and  of  life. 
But  he  meant  not  mere  present  or  temporary  pleasures  or  relief 
from  pains,  but  "present  and  future  taken  in  one  great  total."  He 
taught  that  it  was  expedient  to  forego  present  pleasure  and  suffer 
present  pain  in  order  to  secure  greater  good,  but  that  the  extreme 
asceticism  of  the  Cynics  was  not  necessary  to  this  end.  He 
taught  that  perfect  happiness  was  unattainable ;  that  man  could 
not  escape  the  natural  evils,  pain  and  death,  but  that  the  wise 
might  overcome  the  evils  of  envy,  intemperate  love,  sup>erstition, 
etc.,  as  the  consequences  of  ignorance  or  mistaken  opinions.  He 
taught  that  life  was,  to  a  degree,  somewhat  of  a  lottery,  and  that 
the  ignorant  or  "foolish"  man  sometimes  enjoyed  more  pleasure 
or  suffered  less  pain  than  the  wise  man;  but  that  the  general 
rule  was  the  reverse,  and  hence  the  value  of  a  knowledge  of  the 
nature  of  Good  and  Evil. 

"  The  Cyrenaics,"  says  Bain,  "denied  that  there  is  anything 
just,  or  honorable,  or  base,  by  nature  ;  all  depended  on  the  laws 
and  customs.  These  laws  and  customs  the  w^ise  man  obeys  to 
avoid  punishment  and  discredit  from  society  w^here  he  lives  ; 
doubtless,  also,  from  higher  motives,  if  the  political  constitution 
and  his  fellow-citizens  generally  can  inspire  him  with  respect." 
They,  like  the  Cynics,  did  not  believe  in  or  profess  to.  have  dis- 
interested, generous  or  altruistic  impulses. 


THE  ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  19 

ARISTOTLE. 

Aristotle  lived  during  the  period  of  about  384  to  322  B.  C. 
and  is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  most  justly  famous  of  the  philosophers 
of  that  age.  He  is  supposed  to  have  written  voluminously  upon 
ethical  subjects,  yet  much  of  what  has  been  generally  attributed 
to  him  is  thought  by  some  critics  to  have  been  recorded  by  his 
pupils,  especially  by  Eudemus,  and  that  while  these  records  of 
his  teachings  by  his  pupils  may  be  considered  fairly  representa- 
tive, in  general,  of  his  views,  there  is  reason  to  think  that  the 
personal  views  of  the  pupils  themselves  more  or  less  modify  or 
even  contradict  some  of  the  doctrines  of  Aristotle. 

The  ethical  works  usually  assigned  to  Aristotle's  authorship 
are  the  Nicomachean  Ethics,  generally  agreed  to  be  the  chief  and 
most  important  presentation  of  his  views ;  and  the  Eudemian 
Ethics  and  the  Magna  Moralia,  two  smaller  works  which  modern 
critics  believe  to  have  been  produced  by  Eudemus,  largely,  and 
by  others  of  Aristotle's  disciples. 

Aristotle's  ethics  is  not  to  be  found  set  forth  as  an  orderly 
system,  but  scattered  disconnectedly  throughout  his  writings. 
But  by  careful  study  and  arrangement,  his  leading  doctrines  may 
be  extracted  and  methodically  set  out,  as  follows  : 

In  Book  1  of  the  Nicomachean  Ethics  Aristotle  discusses  the 
Chief  Good  or  the  highest  end  of  human  effort.  He  avers  that 
every  exercise  of  the  human  powers  aims  at  some  good,  and  all 
the  arts  have  their  several  ends, "  which  are  subordinate  to  a 
general  higher  end,  which  is  the  chief  good,  the  "subject  of  the 
highest  art  of  all,  the  political,  which,  he  says,  aims  at  the  welfare 
of  the  aggregate  of  individuals,"  and  therefore  "is  identical  with 
and  comprehends  the  welfare  of  the  individual." 

But  Aristotle  does  not  consider  politics  as  a  science  of  exact- 
ness. The  student  of  it  studies  to  discover  what  is  "just,  honor- 
able and  good,"  and  the  uncertainty  is  so  great  as  to  this  that 
"the  utmost  discrepancy  of  opinion  prevails"  —as  the  commonest 
observation  of  political  affairs  show  us  is  still  the  case  in  this 
twentieth  century.  Hence  he  considers  that  the  conclusions  to 
be  drawn  from  such  premises  cannot  be  known  principles,  but 
only  probabilities.     He  says  the  highest  practical  good,  men  find 


20  THE  ORIGIN   AND  EVOLLTTION  OF  ETHICS 

to  be  happiness,  but  vary  greatly  in  their  opinions  of  what  happi- 
ness is  of  its  nature.  He  says  the  masses  look  upon  it  as 
temporal  pleasures,  honor,  wealth,  etc.,  "  while  individuals  vary 
in  their  estimate  according  to  each  man's  state  for  the  time  being;'* 
as  examples,  the  sick  look  to  health,  the  jDoor  to  wealth,  the  con- 
sciously ignorant  to  knowledge,  as  happiness  or  its  chief  source. 
He  classifies  the  various  efforts  men  make  to  attain  happiness  as 
sensuality — temporal  pleasure;  politics,  or  aspiring  to  honor, 
fame ;  and  the  contemplative  or  intellectual  life.  He  calls  the 
first  the  "life  of  the  brutes,"  the  second  he  says  is  only  a  means 
to  the  end  of  becoming  conscious  of  one's  own  merits.  Even 
virtue,  he  thinks,  cannot  itself  bring  happiness,  "for  the  virtuous 
man  may  pass  his  life  in  inactivity  or  experience  the  maximum 
of  calamity,  and  such  a  man  cannot  be  regarded  as  happy. "  He 
does  not  seem  to  recognize  the  fact  that  a  "virtuous  man  '  who 
"passes  his  life  in  inactivity "  is  really  not  a  virtuous  man  ;  that 
inactivity  is  slothfulness,  laziness — a  vice.  But  he  concludes  that 
the  contemplative  life  is  the  only  one  that  leads  along  the  path 
of  happiness. 

Aristotle  controverts  Plato's  doctrine  of  an  absolute  good  — 
an  ideal  general  good  distinct  from  all  the  {Articular  goods, 
which  imparts  to  these  the  property  of  goodness. 

Aristotle  teaches  that  what  he  calls  the  Supreme  End  (of 
human  endeavor)  is,  1st,  an  end-in-itself,  "pursued  for  its  own 
sake;  2nd,  it  must  he  self-sufficing — ^leaving  no  wrants  unprovided 
for — taking  into  account  the  gratification  of  man's  desire  for 
society —  association.  And  he  says  that  happiness  is  such  an 
end — hence  the  Supreme  End. 

He  lays  great  stress  on  each  man  pursuing  that  art  to  which 
he  is  best  adapted,  just  as  the  hand,  the  eye,  the  heart,  etc.,  must 
do  its  own  peculiar  work  to  be  in  good  health.  And,  as  Bain 
expresses  it,  "Since  the  work  of  man  consists  in  the  exercise  of 
the  mental  capacities,  conformably  to  reason,  the  supreme  good 
of  man  will  consist  in  performing  this  work  with  excellence  or 
virtue.  Herein  he  will  obtain  happiness,  if  we  assume  continu- 
ance throughout  a  full  period  of  life  :  one  day,  or  a  short  time  is 
not  sufficient  for  happiness." 


THE   ORIGIN   AND  EVOLUTION     OF  ETHICS  2 1 

Aristotle  defines  man's  supreme  happiness,  as  other  philoso- 
phers had  often  done,  in  such  phrases  as  "  good  of  the  mind, 
"living  well  and  doing  well,"  etc.  ;  that  it  consists  in  virtue,  as 
taught  by  the  Cynics ;  in  practical  wisdom,  as  taught  by  Socrates; 
in  philosophy,  or  all  of  these  things  connected  with  pleasure,  as 
taught  by  Plato.  But  in  agreeing  with  these  definitions,  he 
states  his  own  definition  to  be  superior  in  that  his  theory 
requires  virtue  to  not  be  a  mere  possession,  but  virtuous  action, 
and  that  "  to  the  virtuous  man,  virtuous  performance  is  itself 
pleasurable."  He  says  the  only  true  basis  of  happiness  is  "the 
active  manifestation  of  mental  excellence,  which  no  ill-fortune 
can  efface  from  a  man's  mind. " 

Aristotle  confined  his  ideas  of  happiness  to  this  life  and  this 
world,  apparently  regarding  speculation  as  to  the  means  to  the 
end  of  after-life  happiness  as  "useless — such  means  being 
unavailable  in  this  life."  Presumably,  he  considered  that  the  wise 
course  was  to  take  "  one  world  at  a  time. 

Here  1  shall  refer  briefly  to  Aristotle's  famous  definition  of  the 
difference  between  intellectual  excellence  and  moral  excellence. 
He  says  the  former  is  "chiefly  generated  and  improved  by  teach- 
ing, whereas  the  latter  is  a  result  of  habit  (ethics)  ;"  that  "moral 
excellence  is  no  inherent  part  of  of  our  nature ;  if  it  were,  it  could 
not  be  reversed  by  habit,  any  more  than  a  stone  can  acquire, 
from  any  number  of  repetitions,  the  habit  of  moving  upward. " 
He  held  that  moral  excellence  is  neither  a  part  of  nor  contrary 
to  human  nature,  that  we  are  by  nature  simply  adapted  to  take 
it  on  and  to  bring  it  into  habit  through  which  it  attains  to  its 
consummation.  Moral  virtues,  he  taught,  are  acquired  only 
through  practice.  Just  as  the  mechanic  learns  to  build  by  build- 
ing and  the  harpist  learns  to  play  by  playing  the  harp,  so  men 
become  just,  etc.,  by  the  practice  of  the  moral  virtues.  And  on 
this  principle  he  justifies  government  as  effecting  morality  ;  for 
he  says  '  all  lawgivers  shape  the  characters  of  their  respective 
citizens  by  enforcing  habitual  practice."  And  again,  as  to  the 
effect  of  compulsion  as  establishing  a  life  of  moral  rectitude,  he 
refers  to  the  importance  of  enforcing  good  actions  upon  the 
young  habitually   from   the.  beginning — "  the  permanent  ethical 


22  THE  ORIGIN  AND  EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

acquirements  are  generated  by  uniform  and  persistent  practice.'* 
As  Bain  remarks,  this  is  the  earliest  statement  of  the  philosophy 
of  habit. 

Many  modern  opponents  of  reform  movements  in  which  the 
force  of  law  is  called  for,  contradict  this  principle,  but,  I  think, 
without  just  grounds  in  the  facts  of  human  nature.  One  of  the 
common  expressions  of  these  people  is  that  "you  cannot  make 
men  moral  by  law."  This  is  often  accepted  as  a  self-evident 
fact,  whereas  !  deem  it  a  gross  fallacy.  Indeed  it  is  upon  this 
principle  of  forming  moral  habits  by  compelling  the  practice  of 
moral  conduct  that  parents  generally  resort  to  coinpulsion  in  bring- 
ing up  their  children  ;  and  we  see  on  every  hand  the  evil  effects 
of  failure  to  train  children  compulsorily  to  do  right,  and  of  the 
good  effects  of  the  opposite  course,  in  the  formation  of  the  habits 
and  moral  character  of  the  grown-up  men  and  women.  One  of 
the  chief  objects,  then,  of  criminal  law  should  be  the  formation 
of  fixed  habits  of  moral  conduct  by  enforcing  the  practice  of  right 
conduct.  This  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  universally- 
recognized  principle  of  exercise  as  a  means  of  development.  The 
physical  culturist  compels  the  practice  of  his  muscles  in  the  line  of 
action  which  results  in  the  development  of  strength  and  agility. 

Aristotle,  therefore,  takes  pains  to  emphasize  his  doctrine  by 
frequently  declaring  that  his  purpose  is  not  only  to  teach  what 
virtue  is,  but  to  teach  what  are  virtuous  agents.  And  he  says  we 
are  to  know  of  what  this  practice  should  be,  not  by  the  edicts  of 
the  gods,  but  by  the  exercise  of  reason.  But  he  explains  that  as 
in  the  case  of  rules  for  the  promotion  of  health,  no  universally- 
applicable  rules  of  practice  for  the  development  of  virtuous  hab- 
its can  be  laid  down.  The  rules  and  methods  must  be  more  or 
less  varied  to  suit  individual  differences. 

Aristotle  sets  forth  a  curious  but  reasonable  means  of  knowing 
when  a  course  of  moral  conduct  has  really  become  established 
as  a  fixed  habit  of  character.  It  is  this  :  That  the  performance 
of  virtuous  acts  from  a  fixed  habit  gives  no  pain  -no  fear  or 
remorse.  "  He  that  feels  pain  in  a  brave  act  is  a  coward. "  So 
he  defines  a  virtuous  education  as  one  which  "makes  men  feel 
pleasure  or  pain  at  proper  objects  and  on  proper  occasions;  pun- 
ishment is  a  discipline  of  pain. 


THE   ORIGIN   AND  EVOLUTION     OF  ETHICS  23 

Aristotle  insisted  persistently  upon  the  principle  of  the  neces- 
sity of  a  man's  habitually  performing  acts  from  a  proper  motive 
to  constitute  him  a  moral  man  ;  and  that  the  only  way  toacquire 
these  character-habits  was  by  practice,  which  not  only  develops 
the  habit  but  also  the  mental  state  back  of  it  which  takes  cogni- 
zance of  the  intention. 

Finally,  to  give  concisely  Aristotle's  definition  of  virtue,  it  is 
thus  stated :  "  Virtue  is  an  acquirement  or  fixed  state,  tending 
by  deliberate  purpose  (genus)  toward  a  mean  relative  to  us  (dif- 
ference), determined  by  reason  as  the  Judicious  man  would 
determine. "  This  he  sets  out  as  a  rule  for  recognizing  an  author- 
ity for  moral  conduct,  but  at  the  same  time  he  refers  all  rules  of 
moral  conduct  back  ultimately  to  their  original  source  in  the 
authority  of  the  society  or  State  of  the  time  and  place. 

He  lays  much  stress  on  the  mean  in  the  practice  of  virtue,  but 
recognizes  the  difficulty  of  determining  in  practice  what  that 
mean  is.  He  lays  down  some  general  rules  for  assisting  in  this 
determination :  "Avoid  the  worst  extreme ;  keep  farthest  from 
our  natural  bent ;  guard  against  the  snare  of  pleasure ".  In  par- 
ticulars of  practice,  however,  all  must  be  left  to  the  judgment  of 
reason , 

Aristotle  taught  that  both  virtue  and  vice  were  voluntary — 
that  is,  that  man  willed  to  do  virtuous  or  to  do  vicious  acts.  He 
does  not  seem  to  have  traced  the  line  of  causation  back  so  far  as 
to  discover  that  the  will  is  determined  by  peculiarities  of  heredi- 
tary organization  and  the  life-environment  of  the  actor.  It  may 
be  truly  said  that  men  act  virtuously  or  viciously  because  they 
will  to  do  so ;  but  we  are  justified  by  facts  in  going  further  and 
saying  that  men  will  to  do  one  or  the  other  kind  of  acts  by  the 
character  of  their  mental  organization  influenced  by  their  environ- 
ment -their  circumstances.  He  says  "man  must  be  admitted  to 
be  the  origin  of  his  own  actions,"  but  that  is  only  a  part  of  the 
truth  ;  for  man  cannol  be  admitted  to  be  the  origin  of  himself, 
and  the  selfhood  of  man  is  what  constitutes  him  an  individual 
person,  and  the  sum  of  his  acts  good  and  bad  constitute  the 
characteristics  of  his  individuality  and  personality  and  character. 
Hence,  we  may  truly  say  that  the  proximate  cause  of  virtuous  or 
vicious  acts  or  habits,   is  man's  will,  but  that  the  ultimate  causes 


24  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

of  those  acts  and  the  will  are  hereditary  organization  and  environ- 
ment. Again,  he  says  "  legislators  and  others  punish  men  for 
wickedness,  and  confer  honor  on  good  actions,"  implying  that  in 
this  we  have  evidence  that  those  actions  are  causelessly  voluntary 
-that  the  will  to  do  thus  and  so  is  itself  without  a  cause.  But 
the  Determinist's  answer  to  this  is  that  the  punishment  of  men 
as  a  means  of  correcting  their  actions  is  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  supplying  them  with  an  environment  which  delermines  their 
will  to  act  differently  from  what  they  would  in  an  environment 
of  pleasure  Further,  he  says  "our  character  itself,  or  our  fixed 
acquirements,  are  in  our  power,  being  produced  by  our  succes- 
sive acts,"  which  is  another  half  truth,  for  to  say  that  there  is  no 
cause  back  of  the  will  to  produce  a  certain  line  of  successive  acts 
is  to  say  that  man  is  himself  a  "first  cause,"  or  a  causeless  effect. 
But  he  makes  a  distinction  between  individual  acts  and  fixed 
acquirements  or  habits,  by  saying  that  the  latter  "are  not  in  his 
own  power  in  the  same  sense  or  degree  in  which  his  separate 
acts  are."  That  is,  speaking  correctly,  the  habit  is  really  Je/er- 
mined  by  a  certain  line  of  conduct.  But  that  line  of  conduct, 
though  determined  by  the  will  as  a  proximate  cause,  is  deter- 
mined by  heredity  and,  largely,  by  environment — the  causes  of 
the  will  itself. 

Of  Aristotle's  doctrine  of  the  voluntary  control  of  both  virtuous 
and  vicious  acts,  Alexander  Bain  remarks : 

"Aristotle  \s  happily  unembroiled  with  the  modern  controversy.  The 
mal-apropos  of  '  freedom'  had  not  been  applied  to  voluntary  action.  Ac- 
cordingly he  treats  the  vs^hole  question  from  the  inductive  side,  dis- 
tinguishing the  cases  where  people  are  praised  or  blamed  for  their  con- 
duct from  those  where  praise  and  blame  are  inapplicable  as  being  pow- 
erless. It  would  have  been  well  if  the  method  had  never  been  departed 
from;  a  sound  psychology  would  have  improved  the  induction,  but 
would  never  have  introduced  any  question  except  as  to  the  relative 
strength  of  the  d.fferent  feelings  operating  as  motives  to  voluntary  con- 
duct."     [  Moral  Science,  p.  74.] 

Aristotle  classifies  the  virtues  into  those  of  Courage,  Temper- 
ance (moderation).  Liberality,  Magnificence  (a  "grander  kind  of 
liberality").  Magnanimity  or  Highmindedness,  Mildness  (a  state  in 
which  one  is  not  impelled  by  passion  but  guided  by  reason), 
'  Good  Breeding,  Modesty,  Justice  (the  social  virtue  by  pre-emin- 
ence), and  the  Intellectual  virtues  or  excellences. 


THE  ORIGIN  AND  EVOLUTION    OF  ETHICS  25 

The  Aristotelian  moral  philosophy  may  be  summarized  thus: 
1 ,  The  judgment  of  the  wisest  and  most  highly  cultivated  minds 
constitute  the  standard;  2,  Happiness  is  the  Sumwum  Bonum  or 
Chief  Good ;  3,  Virtue  in  particular  is  distinguished  from  excel- 
lence in  general;  4,  The  individual  is  the  moral  pupil  of  society 
■ — i.e.,  each  takes  his  lessons  in  moral  conduct  from  the  general 
edicts  and  practices  of  society;    5,   Morality  is  wholly  apart  from 

theology, 

SKCTTON    IIT. 

THE  STOICS, 

Zeno,  of  Citium,  who  lived  from  340  to  260  B.  C,  was  the 
founder  of  the  sect  of  philosophers  called  the  Stoics.  The  Stoical 
philosophy  was  an  outgrowth  of  the  Cynical,  and  was  the  direct 
opponent  of  the  Epicurean.  It  flourished  for  about  400  years,  and 
has  more  or  less  permeated  and  influenced  nearly,  if  not  all, 
thought  and  literature  relative  to  ethics,  at  all  effected  by  the 
Greek  philosophies,  ever  since.  The  name  Stoic  means  a  porch, 
and  was  applied  to  Zeno  and  his  pupils  because  their  school  was 
originally  opened  in  a  building  or  porch  called  the  Stoa  Poecile— 
"painted  portico," — in  Athens.  Cleanthes,  a  noted  pupil  of  Zeno, 
wrote  the  Hymn  to  Jupiter,  which  was  a  remarkable  production 
and  the  earliest  authentic  writing  of  the  Stoics  that  has  come 
down  to  us.  This  hymn  sets  forth  the  unity  of  God  (Jupiter) — ■ 
that  is,  the  monotheistic  idea^his  omnipotence  and  his  moral 
government  of  the  world.  Another  pupil  was  Chrysippus,  who 
vn-ote  voluminously  and  somewhat  modified  the  original  Stoical 
system  of  Zeno.  About  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  the  Stoic  philosophy  began  to  be  accepted  in  Rome,  and 
through  the  Roman  literature,  doubtless,  it  has  affected  that  of 
the  English  and  European  languages. 

A  writer  on  the  Stoical  philosophy,  Sir  A.  Grant,  apparently 
demonstrates  that  the  system  is  more  closely  related  to  the  an- 
cient oriental  systems  than  to  early  Greek  ideas—that  it  is 
largely  of  Asiatic  origin,  and  he  shows  that  nearly  all  the  earlier 
Stoical  philosophers  were  of  Asiatic  birth. 

In  Rome,  Stoicism  was  early  presented  by  Cicero  in  his  treatise, 
©e  Offiis,  which  was  based  on  a  previous  work  of  one  Panastius ; 
and  by  Cato  the  Younger,  Seneca  (6  B.  C— 60  A.  D.)  Epictetus 


26  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

(the  Slave),  and  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus,  the  Emperor  (121- 
180  A.  D.).  There,  two  opposing  philosophies,  Stoicism  and 
Epicureanism,  flourished  side  by  side. 

The  Stoics  taught  a  theologico-moral  system  really  a  sort  of 
religion.    Their  system  may  be  summarized  under  four  heads  : 

1 .  Theological  the  system  of  the  Universe  and  man's  rela- 
tion thereto.  It  was,  in  a  sense,  monotheistic,  but  critically  speak- 
ing really  not  so,  for  while  it  taught  that  the  Universe  was  ruled 
by  one  Supreme  God,  it  taught  also  that  he  was  assisted  by 
numerous  subordinate,  inferior  deities.  It  emphasizes  the  dogma 
that  the  good  and  wise  God  governs  the  world  in  such  manner 
that  the  good  are  rewarded  with  happiness  and  the  wicked  with 
misfortune  and  misery.  The  idea  of  divine  revelation  through 
omens,  prophecy  and  certain  forms  of  divination,  was  embraced, 
so  that  the  Gods  thus  revealed  to  man  that  which  they  had  fore- 
ordained. In  the  Stoic  theology,  God,  the  Supreme  God,  was 
anthromorphous  in  body  and  spirit.  It  essayed  to  account  for 
evil  in  a  world  governed  by  an  allwise,  omnipotent  God,  as  mod- 
ern theists  yet  do,  by  a  series  of  axiomatic  assumptions,  as  fol- 
lows: a — "God  is  the  author  of  all  things  except  w^ickedness  ; 
b — the  very  nature  of  good  supposes  its  contrast  for  opposite], 
evil,  and  the  two  are  inseparable,  like  light  and  darkness;  c  in 
the  enormous  extent  of  the  Universe,  some  things  must  be  neg- 
lected [virtually  admitting  the  finitcness  of  God];  d  when  evil 
happens  to  the  good  it  is  not  as  a  punishment,  but  as  connected 
with  a  different  dispensation  ;  e  parts  of  the  w^orld  may  be  pre- 
sided over  by  evil  demons  ;  /^  -what  we  call  evil,  may  not  be 
evil.'  (Bain's  Moral  Science.)  The  First  Cause  wbs  said  to  be 
Zeus,  "  the  primal  fire,"  from  whom  emanated  the  souls  of  men 
as  "warm  ether. "  God  was  thought  to  be  material  substance,  as 
"  nothing  incorporeal  could  act  on  wh^t  is  corporeal. " 

The  Stoics  were  undecided  as  to  man's  immortality,  teaching 
that  at  death  the  individual  soul  was  absorbed  by  the  divine  es- 
sence ;  and  yet  that  we  should  consider  this  as  undecided  and 
"  leave  it  to  the  pleasure  of  God. "  Their  argument  for  the  exist- 
ence of  God  was  the  old  ones  (still  in  use)  of  design  and  analog]^ — 
"  that  a  greater  power  pervades  the  Universe  as  the  intellect  per- 
vades the  human  system." 


THE   ORIGIN   AND  EVOLUTION     OF  ETHICS  27 

2.  In  the  Stoical  Psychology  there  were  two  chief  doctrines — 
the  theory  of  "  freedom  of  the  will  "  and  that  of  "  pleasure  and 
pain. "  In  regard  to  freedom  of  the  will,  Epictetus  and  others  of 
the  Stoics  taught  that  such  freedom  extended  to  a  class  of 
"  things  in  our  power, "  as  our  desires,  affections,  aversions,  and 
even  our  opinions  about  things ;  while  it  did  not  extend  to  such 
things  as  were  "not  in  our  power,  as  authority,  honor,  rank,  wealth, 
death,  and  even  our  bodies.  They  thought  the  freedom  of  the 
will  in  relation  to  the  latter  was  unimportant,  and  "  the  want  of 
them  should  not  give  us  pain  nor  mar  our  happiness.  The  force 
of  deprivation  of  wealth,  rank,  etc.,  and  of  death,  was  thought  to 
be  wholly  in  the  idea  of  them,  and  our  freedom  of  will  enabled 
us  to  control  this  idea  to  the  point  of  indifference. 

Though  1  have  here  used  the  term  freedom  of  the  mill  for  this 
Stoical  doctrine,  it  must  not  be  understood  as  extending  back  to 
the  cause  of  the  will,  as  now  discussed  by  the  Determinists.  It 
referred  exclusively  to  our  freedom  to  do  or  acquire,  or  prevent 
things.  The  free  volition  was  not  discussed  in  this  discussion  ; 
it  was  a  matter  of  things  our  free  volition  could  not  control.  But 
Chrysippus  went  back  of  this  and  argued  with  his  opponents  that 
the  will  itself  was  alwa\}s  determined  or  controlled  by  antecedent 
motives — that  is,  causes.  He  denied  the  doctrine  of  Aristotle 
that  there  existed  within  the  soul  an  automatic,  self-initiating  or 
spontaneous  power,  which  was  irregular  (not  governed  by  natu- 
ral law).  In  decisions  of  the  will  in  cases  of  apparently  equal 
conflict,  he  declared  that  the  balance,  or  exact  equality  did  not 
long  continue,  "  because  some  new  but  slight  motive  slipped  in 
unperceived  and  turned  the  scale  on  one  side  or  the  other."  (See 
Plutarch  "De  Stoicorum  Repugnatiis,  c.  23,  p.  1045.) 

The  practical  application  of  this  doctrine  was,  that  man  should 
train  his  mind  to  adapt  himself  to  will  to  acquire  or  do  things  "  in 
harmony  with  the  schemes  of  Providence,"  which  they  thought 
were  always  planned  for  the  good  of  the  entire  world,  as  a  whole 
in  extent  and  duration.  The  bad  man  who  did  not  so  regulate 
his  conduct  to  harmonize  with  these  providential  schemes,  suf- 
fered for  his  error,  while  the  good  man  who  did  so  regulate  his 
will  and  conduct,  escaped  with  less  pain  or  none  at  all. 

But  Determinism  was  a  doctrine  of  philosophies  and  various 


28  THE  ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF  ETHICS 

schools  of  philosophy  long  before  Chrysippus.  For  Socrates 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  and,  as  Bain  says,  "all  the  ethical  teachers  of 
antiquity,"  taught  that  the  decisions  of  the  will  depended  upon 
natural  causes,  and  not  upon  an  initiating  power  of  the  soul. 
Epicurus  also  taught  this  doctrine. 

These  moral  philosophers  all  aimed  to  originate  new  habits 
and  a  "new  type  of  character,"  though  they  disagreed  as  to  ex- 
actly what  that  new  type  should  be.  But  the  general  end  was 
the  same,  the  formation  of  a  type  of  character  able  to  regulate  the 
desires  and  aversions  with  reason,  and  to  temper  the  suscepti* 
bility  of  the  will  to  different  motives  or  causes.  This  aim  could 
not  be  consonant  with  the  idea  that  the  will  is  "self-originating 
and  unpredictable." 

3.  The  Stoical  theory  of  Happiness  was  that  it  depended 
solely  upon  the  Good ;  that  mere  pleasure  was  no  part  of  good, 
and  pain  no  part  of  evil,  and  therefore  relief  from  pain  was  not 
necessary  to  happiness.  Still,  to  maintain  their  defense  of  a  moral 
life,  they  were  obliged  to,  in  part,  modify  this  theory. 

4,  The  theory  of  Virtue  held  by  the  Stoics,  was,  in  brief,  that 
it  consisted  in  a  "life  according  to  nature;"  subordination  of  the 
individual  to  the  general  interests  of  the  family,  country  and  hu- 
manity, and  even  "the  whole  Universe."  The  highest  character 
of  virtue  was  "to  consider  self  as  absolutely  nothing  in  comparison 
with  the  universal  interest,"  and  to  regard  this  interest  as  the  sole 
purpose  of  the  individual  life. 

They  were  humanitarians,  regarding  with  kindness  not  only 
all  mankind,  but  the  animals  and  even  inanimate  things.  They 
declared  there  was  "no  difference  between  the  Greeks  and  the 
Barbarians,"  and  antedated  Paine's  famous  declaration  by  saying 
that  "the  world  is  our  city." 

The  Stoical  ethics  was  an  element  of  a  religion,  and  Stoicism, 
taken  as  a  whole,  was  a  religion  as  well  as  a  "  philosopy. '  For  it 
emphsized  the  importance  of  our  "duties  to  God,  and  of  morality 
based  on  piety."  The  Stoics  declared  that  all  men  were  not  only 
brethren,  but  also  "  children  of  one  Father." 


THE   ORIGIN   AND  EVOLUTION     OF   ETHICS  29 

SKX'TIOX     I\'. 

THE   EPICUREANS. 

Epicurus,  the  founder  of  the  philosophical  sect  called  the 
Epicureans,  was  born  on  the  island  of  Samos,  341  B.  C,  and 
died  at  the  age  of  seventy-one  years.  It  is  supposeed  that  he 
was  a  pupil  of  Xenocrates  or  Theophrastus  in  Athens.  In  a  gar- 
den in  that  city  he  established  a  school  for  the  study  of  philoso- 
phy in  306  B.  C.  It  is  recorded  of  him  that  "his  life  was  simple, 
chaste  and  temperate;"  but,  alas  for  the  perversity  of  human  er- 
rancy, which  has  set  up  and  persistently  mantained  many  an- 
other false  tradition,  the  reputation  of  Epicurus  and  his  followers 
has  been  exactly  opposed  to  the  truth,  and  his  very  name  has 
become  proverbial  the  world  over  as  a  synonym  for  the  antith- 
eses of  "simple,  chaste  and  temperate."  He  is  reputed  to  have 
written  300  works  on  philosophy,  but  probably  the  most  of  this 
writing  was  the  labor  of  his  pupils  ;  and  nothing  now  exists  di- 
rectly attributable  to  him  except  three  letters,  in  which  he  gives 
a  condensed  statement  of  his  theories  for  the  benefit,  apparently, 
of  a  few  of  his  near  friends.  At  Herculaneum,  there  have  been 
exhumed  some  supposed  fragments  of  his  writings,  and  some  of 
his  followers  have  recorded  certain  detached  sayings  as  the 
words  of  their  master. 

As  Prof.  Bain  says,  "most  of  our  knowledge  of  Epicurus  is 
from  the  works  of  his  opponents,  Cicero,  Seneca,  Plutarch,  and 
of  his  follower,  Lucretius."  Of  the  Roman  Epicurean  writers, 
Lucretius,  who  lived  from  95  to  51  B.  C,  is  chief,  and  his  poeti- 
cal work,  De  Rerum  Natura,  gives  the  most  complete  exposition 
of  the  Epicurean  system  that  is  in  existence.  A  Christian  (  Ro- 
man Catholic  )  writer  named  Gassendi,  became  a  champion  of 
Epicurus  and  his  philosophy  and  published  a  work  in  1647  enti- 
tled Syntagma  Philosophies  Epicuri  and  a  life  of  Epicurus,  and  "he 
established  an  Epicurean  school  in  France  among  the  disciples  of 
which  were  Moliere  and  Voltaire."  (Bain.) 

Only  of  the  ethical  aspects  of  the  Epicurean  philosophy  can  1 
speak  here.     The  standard  of  morals,  as  taught  by  Epicurus,  was 


30  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF    ETHICS 

referred  to  pleasure  and  pain  pleasure  as  the  reward  of  virtue, 
pain  as  the  panalty  of  vice,  in  general,  and  he  taught  that  virtue 
was  the  only  good,  pain  the  only  evil,  that  the  one  ■was  not  an 
end  in  itself  to  be  sought  nor  the  other  an  end  itself  to  be  avoid- 
ed ;  that  the  motive  for  practicing  viitue  and  abstaining  from  vice 
was  to  the  end  that  pleasure  might  be  increased  and  pain  dimin- 
ished ;  and  that  to  attain  this  end  to  the  greatest  degree,  "the 
complete  supremacy  of  reason  is  indispensable." 

Happiness,  Epicurus  defined  as  enjoyment  of  pleasure  and 
freedon  from  pain  ;  and  the  missapprehension  of  this  has  doubt- 
less led  to  the  error  of  believing  that  Epicureanism  was  only  base 
sensualism.  To  understand  this  definition  aright  we  must  know 
exactly  what  Epicurus  meant  by  the  terms  pleasure  and  pain,  and 
here  is  a  quotation  from  him  that  is  pertinent : 

"When  we  say  that  pleasure  is  the  end  of  life,  we  do  not  mean  the 
pleasures  of  the  debauchee  or  the  sensualist,  as  some  from  ignorance  or 
from  malignity  represent,  but  freedom  of  the  body  from  pain,  and  of 
the  soul  from  anxiety.  For  it  is  not  continuous  drinkings  and  revelings, 
nor  the  society  of  women,  nor  rare  viand.s  and  other  luxuries  of  the  ta- 
ble, that  constitute  a  pleasant  life,  but  sober  contemplations,  such  as 
searches  out  the  grounds  of  choice  and  avoidance,  and  banishes  those 
chimeras  that  harass  the  mind." 

Bain  states  the  case  fairly,  as  follows:   . 

"When  we  read  the  explanations  given  by  Epicurus  and  Lucretius  of 
what  the  Epicurean  theory  really  was,  and  compare  them  with  the  nu- 
merous attacks  made  upon  it  by  opponents,  we  cannot  but  remark  that 
the  title  or  formula  of  the  theory  was  ill-chosen,  and  was  really  a  mis- 
nomer. What  Epicurus  meant  by  pleasure  was  not  what  people  meant 
by  it  [sensual  indulgence]  but  something  very  different — a  tranquil 
and  comfortable  state  of  mind  and  body  ;  much  the  same  as  what  Demo- 
critus  had  expressed  before  him  by  the  phrase  Euphemia.  This  last 
phrase  would  have  expressed  what  lipicurus  aimed  at.  neither  more  nor 
less.  It  would  at  least  have  preserved  his  theory  from  much  misplaced 
sarcasm  and  aggressive  rhetoric." —Mora/ Science,  p.   120. 

Epicurus  came  very  close  to  the  modern  doctrine  of  evolution  in 
his  theory  of  the  relationship  of  bodily  feeling  physiological 
sensation  and  mentality  the  memory  and  hope  of  pleasure  or 
memory  and  expectation  of  pain.  He  says  the  one  is  prior  to 
the  other ;  "the  former  was  primordial  while   the   latter   was   de- 


THE   ORIGIN   AND  EVOLUTION     OF  ETHICS  31 

rivative  from  it  by  repeated  processes  of  memory  and  association." 
And  he  taught  that  the  mental  or  intellectual  element  of  pleas- 
ure or  pam  far  surpassed  m  importance  the  mere  physical  or 
bodily  element,  because  the  latter  "exists  only  in  the  present," 
"but  mental  feelmgs  involve  memory  and  hope — embrace  the 
past  as  well  as  the  future — and  may  endure  for  a  long  time." 

Epicurus  considered  the  chief  ills  of  life  to  be  not  bodily  pains, 
but  the  delusions  of  exaggerated  hopes  and  aspirations  for  wealth, 
honor,  etc.,  and  from  the  delusions  of  fear-  anticipations  of  evils 
to  come;  and  he  said  "the  two  greatest  torments  of  human  ex- 
istence "  were  "  fear  of  death  and  of  eternal  suffering  after  death 
as  announced  by  prophets  and  poets,  and  fear  of  the  gods." 

He  did  not  believe  in  "  the  existence  of  the  soul  separate  from 
the  body,"  but  that  it  was  a  compound  of  "  air,  vapor,  heat  and 
another  nameless  •  ingredient,  *  *  in  the  chest  [the  breath,  of 
course,  was  the  original  soul  or  "  spirit "  as  I  have  often  contended] 
dependent  on  the  body  and  incapable  of  separate  or  disembodied 
contmuance." 

He  was  a  firm  believer  in  the  gods,  but  considered  the  preva- 
lent opinions  about  them  as  "  vulgar "  and  insulting.  He  con- 
ceived of  them  as  very  superior  beings,  not  concerned  with  the 
management,  as  mere  agents  or  providences,  of  the  affairs  of  man- 
kind or  even  of  the  phenomena  of  the  cosmos.  He  considered 
death  to  be  "  a  permanent  extinction  of  consciousness,"  and  as 
such  was  not  to  be  feared. 

But  Epicurus  did  not  confine  his  pnilosophy  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  the  individual.  He  clearly 
conceived  of  the  solidarity  of  humanity,  and  he  set  out  a  system 
of  real  ethics  ;  that  is,  a  science  of  human  association  involvmg 
the  right  relations  of  the  individual  members  one  to  another,  each 
to  all  and  all  to  each.  His  idea,  broadly,  was  that  of  the  partner- 
ship of  each  with  the  others  for  the  benefit  of  ail.  The  sum  of 
his  ethical  system  was  that  '  'just  and  righteous  dealing  was  the 
indispensable  condition  to  everyone's  comfort.''  He  exalted 
friendship  above  justice,  declaring  that  '  'a  good  friend  was  an- 
other self,  and  that  friends  ought  to  be  prepared,  in  case  of  need, 


32  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

to  die  for  each  other."  Thus  he  distinguished  between  that 
element  of  ethics  which  holds  an  exact  balance  of  right  between 
man  and  man  and  a  nobler  element  which  involves  self-sacrifice 
for  the  good  of  another  and  of  society.  He  declared  that  there 
was  "  more  pleasure  in  giving  than  in  receiving,"  and  that  in- 
telligent gratitude  of  the  receiver  was  due,  saymg  that  "  no  one 
but  a  wise  man  knows  how  to  return  a  favor  properly.' 

Prof.  Bain  remarks  in  a  note  in  his  Moral  Science  that  "  we 
know,  even  by  the  admission  of  witnesses  adverse  to  the  Epi- 
curean doctrines,  that  the  harmony  among  the  members  of  the 
sect,  with  common  veneration  for  the  founder,  v^as  more  marked 
and  more  enduring  than  that  exhibited  by  any  of  the  other  sects. 
Epicurus  himself  was  a  man  of  amiable  personal  qualities."  On 
the  principle  that  "  a  tree  is  known  by  its  fruits."  this  speaks  well 
for  Epicurus  and  his  system. 

Plotinus  (A.  D.  205-70)  and  Porphyry  were  the  principal  rep- 
resentatives of  the  early  Neo-Platonist  philosophy,  which  was 
essentially  ethical  in  character,  though  hardly  to  be  called  an  eth- 
ical system.  The  means  proposed  for  the  culture  of  the  moral 
nature  was  intellectual,  and  yet  Neo-Platonism  may  be  said  to  be 
of  a  somewhat  religious  or  religio-ethical  nature. 

The  teachings  of  Plotinus  were  collected  into  the  six  Enneac/s, 
the  first  of  which  contained  chiefly  his  ethical  views,  by  his  pupil, 
Porphyry. 

The  basic  idea  was  the  "fall"  of  man,  but  a  fall  that  occurred 
before  embodiment,  the  entry  of  the  soul  into  a  material  body 
being  the  penalty  for  the  sin  which  brought  about  the  "fall." 
The  aim  of  human  effort  toward  right  conduct  was  thought  to  be 
to  "  rise  above  the  debasing  connection  with  matter,  and  again 
to  lead  the  old  spiritual  life"  a  sort  of  second  birth  doctrine 
somewhat  different  from  that  of  the  Christian  theology.  But  the 
idea  both  of  the  fall  and  the  new  birth  is  essentially  of  a  theolog- 
ical nature,  and  closely  allied  to  the  Chrisiian  doctrine  of  the  fall 
and  second  birth,  except,  perhaps,  to  the  Christian  notion  as  to 
the  blood-sacrifice  redemption. 

It  was  taught  by  Plotinus  that  some  were  sunk  so  far  in  mate- 


THE    ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS.  33 

riality  as  to  be  "content  with  the  world  of  sense,"  and  that  for 
these,  "wisdom  consists  in  pursuing  pleasure  as  good  and  shun- 
ning pain  as  evil."  But  others  not  so  much  debased  were  able 
to  "partake  of  a  better  life,  in  different  degrees" — a  more 
"spiritual"  life,  as  the  Christian  would  say. 

In  the  Christian  scheme  the  first  step  toward  entering  upon  a 
better  life  is  set  out  as  "  repentance  "  and  the  next  "  belief  "  in  the 
vicarious,  sacrificed  savior,  Jesus  Christ,  as  annulling  the  penalty 
of  the  "  original  sin  "  inherited  from  Adam  and  all  the  personal 
wrong-doing  up  to  the  hour  of  such  repentance  and  belief.  But 
Plotinus  taught  that  the  practice  of  virtue  was  the  first  step  in  a 
better  life — right  conduct  in  human  inter-relations  the  essence  of 
reform  or  "  conversion  " — and  to  do  this  it  was  necessary  to  sub- 
ject sense  (the  animal  passions)  to  reason.  The  second,  or  higher 
step,  was  to  be  attained  by  means  of  the  "  purifying "  virtues, 
in  which  "  it  is  sought  to  root  out  (instead  of  merely  modifying) 
the  sensual  affections."  He  taught  that  when  the  soul  had  attained 
to  this  freedom  from  all  sensuality  it  was  able,  without  obstacle, 
to  pursue  "  its  natural  bent  towards  good,  and  enter  into  a  perma- 
nent state  of  calm" — another  religio-ethical  doctrine  and  closely 
allied  to  the  Christian  notion  of  "sanctification  '  or  a  state  of 
"holiness"  which  places  the  believer  safely  beyond  the  possibility 
of  again  "  falling  from  grace."  This  perfection  was  thought  to 
bring  one  into  the  likeness  of  Deity,  "all  that  went  before  being 
merely  a  preparation  "  for  this  end.  And  here  we  have  a  modi- 
fication of  the  Christian  dogma  of  the  atonement. 

Plotinus  considered  true  happiness  as  identified  with  perfec- 
tion, and  this  as  a  condition  in  which  the  bodily  desires — appetites 
— were  fully  subdued  except  as  to  the  bare  necessities  of  physical 
existence,  and  in  lieu  of  the  experience  of  the  baser  pleasures  the 
life  of  contemplation  was  the  chief  element  of  happiness.  This 
is  near  to  the  Stoical  doctrine,  but  differs  in  this  that  by  suicide 
or  any  other  way  of  shirking  prolonged  effort  toward  perfection, 
no  freedom  of  the  soul  from  the  "bondage  of  matter"  can  be  at- 
tained. Nothing  short  of  complete  performance  of  the  affairs  of 
life  in  right  conduct  could  "set  the  soul  free  from  the  world  of 
sense." 


34  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

But  highest  of  all  attainable,  was  thought  to  be  the  state  of 
ecstacy — one  of  "  ineffable  bliss" — which  was  attainable  only  by 
the  "  complete  withdrawal  from  the  external  world  into  self, "  form- 
ing a  union  with  the  One  Good,  and  not  even  thinking  or  con- 
templating but  waiting  quietly  for  the  ecstacy  to  come  on  an 
occurrence  of  uncertainty  as  to  when  and  of  how  long  duration, 
owing  to  the  defective  nature  of  man  himself. 


SI<X'TIC)X    V. 

VIEWS    OF   MEDl/EVAL  SCHOLASTICS. 

A  number  of  writers  upon  ethics,  between  A.  D.  1 000  and 
1600,  may  scarcely  be  called  "  sages,"  but  they  re-adjusted  into 
various  sub-systems  or  eclectic  systems  the  elements  of  the  ethics 
of  the  several  systems  of  the  renowned  thinkers  of  pre-Christian 
times,  adding,  now  and  then,  some  ideas  which  were,  in  a  mea- 
sure, new.  Or  rather,  perhaps,  expressmg  some  of  the  old  ideas 
in  new  terms  and  with  modified  meanings  attached  to  the  old 
terms.  Herein  I  shall  refer  to  these  writers  very  briefly,  for  the 
most  part  giving  only  a  very  short  summary  of  their  doctrines  or 
only  a  laconic  statement  of  their  characteristic  teacings. 

Abaelard,  who  lived  from  1 079  to  1  1  42  A.  D.,  may  be  con- 
sidered the  first  and  best  known  of  the  ethical  writers  who  are 
usually  classed  as  teachers  of  scholastic  ethics.  He  wrote  a  trea- 
tise entitled  Scifo  te  ipsum,  the  distinguishing  feature  of  which  was 
emphasizing  and  bringing  forward  prominently  the  subjective 
element  of  morality.  And  this  feature  has,  from  his  time  until 
the  present,  been  considered  as  fundamental  in  ethical  discussion. 
His  theories  were  semi-theological,  inasmuch  as  while  claiming 
for  philosophy  the  right  and  ability  to  fully  discuss  ethical  ques- 
tions and  even  establish  the  laws  of  morality,  he  yet  allowed  that 
Christianity  might  supply  a  "corrective,"  thus  really  allowing  the 
church  Delilah  to  crop  the  hair  of  the  philosophical  Samson,  and 
sit  in  supreme  authority  as  a  sort  of  censor  and  arbitrary  umpire 
in  all  ethical  disputation.  From  thus  extricating  himself  from 
philosophical  authority,  Abaelard  put  h:s  neck  under  the  more 
galling  yoke  of  churchly  authority. 


THE    ORIGIN   AND    EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS.  35 

Abaelard  adopted  the  Aristotelian  principle  of  "the  highest 
good"  as  the  aim  of  all  human,  ethical  effort,  but  added  the  theo- 
logical dictum  that  "God"  was  that  highest  good,  and  argued  that 
"if  God  was  the  highest  good,  the  love  of  God  was  the  highest 
human  good,"  which  was  to  be  attained  by  "a  good  will  consoli- 
dated into  a  habit." 

Abaelard's  speciality,  as  Bain  remarks,  "lies  in  his  judging  ac- 
tions solely  with  reference  to  the  intention  of  the  agent,  and  this 
intention  with  reference  to  conscience"  —all  actions  being  neither 
good  nor  evil  except  from  the  actor's  intentions. 

His  ideas  as  to  the  subjective  element  of  conscience  as  supreme 
in  ethics,  are  expressed  in  such  phrases  as  "there  is  no  sin  except 
against  conscience,"  and  "in  case  of  a  mistaken  moral  conviction, 
an  action  is  not  to  be  called  good,  yet  it  is  not  so  bad  as  an  action 
objectively  right  but  done  against  conscience."  Thus  by  obey- 
ing the  dictates  of  conscience,  right  or  wrong,  we  avoid  commit- 
ing  a  sin ;  yet  in  the  fullest  sense  virtuous  action  is  effected  only 
when  conscience  judges  rightly  and  dictates  justly.  But  Abaelard 
failed,  however,  to  specifically  set  up  any  standard  by  which  con- 
science is  to  distinguish  between  right  and  wrong  action,  but  in- 
ferentially  I  take  it  he  means  that  the  decrees  of  God  as  (supposed 
to  be)  revealed  to  man  through  the  sacred  scripture  and  the  church 
supplied  the  standard  of  last  resort. 

In  1091  to  1  I  53  lived  St.  Bernard,  who  opposed  Abaelard  and 
championed  the  cause  of  mysticism  as  against  rationalism.  He 
set  forth  the  proposition  that  there  are  two  Christian  virtues,  hu- 
mility and  charity  or  love,  and  that  the  highest  form  of  the 
latter  was  the  love  of  God,  and  an  absolutely  voluntary  sen- 
timent. 

John  Salisbury  was  a  Scholastic  self-styled  philosopher  who 
strenuously  upheld  the  papacy  and  referred  to  the  "holy  scrip- 
tures" as  final  authority  in  the  settlement  of  ethical  questions. 

In  the  thirteenth  century  the  Scholastics  began  to  give  more 
attention  to  the  theories  and  classifications  of  the  pagan  philoso- 
phers, especially  of  Aristotle.  But  while  they  adopted  certain 
outlines  of  the  old  philosophies  they  filled  in,  to  suit  their  pre- 
conceptions,   details  and   modifications  selected   from  the  Bible. 


36  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

Bain,  in  his  Moral  Science,  p.  1  26,  says  of  their  methods : 

"If  they  were  commenting  on  the  Ethics  of  Aristotle,  the  Bible  was  at 
hand  to  supply  his  omissions;  if  they  were  setting;  up  a  complete  moral 
system,  they  took  little  more  than  the  ground-work  from  him  —the  rest 
being  Christian  ideas  and  precepts,  or  fragments  borrowed  from  Plato- 
nian  and  other  Greek  systems  nearly  allied  in  spirit  to  their  own  faith." 

And  this  author  adds  that  "this  is  especially  true  of  Thomas 
Aquinas,"  one  of  the  best  known  of  the  middle-age  ethical  (or 
rather  religio-ethical)  writers.  He  lived  from  1  226  to  1  274,  and 
wrote  voluminously  commentaries  on  Aristotle's  works  and  two 
elaborate  works  entitled  Summa  Philosophica  and  Summa  Theo- 
logies, in  this  latter  being  set  forth  particularly  his  ethical  views. 
He  ascribed  pure  happiness  to  the  future  life,  and  drew  his  argu- 
ment in  support  of  a  belief  in  such  a  life  from  the  universal  desire 
for  more  complete  happmess  than  is  attainable  in  this  life  ;  and 
that  the  pure  happiness  of  the  future  life  was  sttained  by  means 
of  "  pure  contemplation  "  of  Deity — "  a  vision  of  the  divine  essence 
face  to  face,  a  direct  cognition  of  Deity  far  surpassing  demonstra- 
tive knowledge  or  mortal  faith."  In  this,  says  Bain,  truthfully, 
"he  is  more  theologian  than  philosopher,  more  Platonist  than 
Aristotelian." 

Aquinas  discussed  the  virtues  in  a  sort  of  mystical  classifica- 
tion in  which  he  treats  of  the  theological  as  the  highest  virtues- 
and  these  refer  to  the  vision  of  Deity,  as  above  spoken  of,  and  he 
considered  them  as  "  given  in  connection  with  the  natural  facul- 
ties of  the  intellect  and  will "  to  be  "  exhibited  in  the  attainment 
of  the  supernatural  order  of  things."  And  he  taught  that  "  with 
intellect  goes  faith — the  intellect  applied  to  things  not  intelligible  ' ! 
This  is  a  model  theological  definition.  He  defined  hope  as  "  the 
will  exercised  upon  things  not  naturally  desired"-  a  definition 
which  contradicts  common  sense. 

It  is  very  apparent  here  that  the  objective  views  of  ethical 
questions  of  the  pagan  and  more  ancient  sages  were  superseded 
in  great  degree  with  the  subjective  views  of  the  theological  mys- 
tics, who  essayed  to  "  reconcile  "  the  old  philosophies  with  Chris- 
tian theologj',  as  later  theologians  have  tried  to  reconcile  modern 
science  with  their  Bible  and  its  theology  :  and  both  have  made 
bungling  jobs  that  are  wholly  arbitrary  and  artificial. 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  37 


SKCTTOX    VI. 


VIEWS  OF  MODERN   MORAL  PHILOSOPHERS 


Note — In  this  discussion  of  the  origin  and  evolution  of  ethics  I  have 
adopted  a  somewhat  peculiar  method.  Instead  of  first  treating  upon  the 
very  earliest  manifestations  of  ethical  conduct,  1  have  preferred  to  en- 
quire as  to  what  men  have  ascribed  such  conduct  as  a  sufficient  motive 
or  determinant  with  themselves  and  their  fellow-beings.  This  of  itself 
is  a  broad  field  ;  and  my  object  has  been  to  present  a  broad  human 
view  or  both  ethics  and  men's  opinions  of  ethics;  then  to  proceed  in  an 
inquiry  as  to  whether  both  ethics  and  man's  view  of  ethics  have  been 
revealed  to  us  from  a  supernatural  source,  or  by  a  super-human  being, 
or  whether  they  have  been  evolved  strictly  under  the  laws  of  evolution 
as  the  biologist  understands  their  application  to  the  vegetal,  sentient 
and  mental  life  of  beings  as  plants,  brutes  and  men.  Hence,  the  origin 
of  ethics  is  to  be  treated  upon  after  have  1  covered,  fairly  well,  the 
ground  of  the  nature  and  evolution  of  ethics  as  a  science.  In  the  whole 
view,  however,  all  ethical  conduct,  and  all  ethical  codes  will  be  con- 
sidered from  the  view-point  of  their  being  natural  mental  phenomena — 
neither  supernatural  nor  "  artificial." 

VERY  brief  must  be  my  reference  to  and  comments  upon 
the  several  moral  philosophers  of  the  modern  period  from 
about  the  year  i  600  to  the  present  time  ;  but,  though  we  may 
find  little  or  nothing  entirely  original  created  since  that  time  by 
these  philosophers,  we  may  find  new  combinations  of  the  old 
doctrines,  new  lights  thrown  upon  old  views,  and,  in  some  cases 
clearer  statements  of  ideas  that  had  for  ages  existed  incognito  in 
mantels  of  obsolete  terms  and  words  of  ambiguous  meaning,  of- 
ten arbitrarily  used  by  each  writer  or  teacher  in  a  sense  peculiar 
to  himself  and  agreeable  with  his  own  peculiar  notions.  Grad- 
ually, by  the  labors  of  this  and  that  great  thinker,  the  original  idea 
has  been  evolved  more  and  more  into  the  objective  view  of  our 
modern  science.  So  I  give  a  chapter  to  a  synopsis  of  the  ethical 
views  of  a   few  of  the  more  notable  philosophers  of  modern  times 


38  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

which  have  considerably  influenced  the  development  of  both  the 
codes  of  ethics  and  the  moral  conduct  of  civilized  man. 

THOM.AS    HOBBES. 

One  of  the  first  of  these  great  thinkers  and  most  voluminous 
writers  was  Thomas  Hobbes,  who  lived  from  I  588  to  I  679.  He 
at  that  comparatively  early  day  seemed  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the 
modern  Monistic  doctrine  of  mooing  matter  as  the  "  substance  "  of 
all  things  and  all  phenomena,  as  frequently  set  out  editorially  in 
The  Humanitarian  Review,  for  he  classified  sense  and  emotion 
or  passion,  as  motion.  Vital,  as  those  of  the  circulation  of  the 
blood,  nutrition,  etc.,  voluntary,  as  walking,  speaking,  etc.  since 
these  "  have  in  the  imagination  their  first  beginning,"  and  by  "  im- 
agination "  he  means  preceding  thought,  and,  he  declares,  is  "  only 
the  relics  of  sense,  and  sense  is  motion  in  the  human  organs  com- 
municated by  organs  without " — a  glimmer  of  the  monistic  doc- 
trines of  determinism  and  mind  a  mode  of  motion. 

He  says  the  voluntary  motions  as  outwardly  visible  begin  with 

internal    invisible  motions,  "  whose  nature  is  expressed  by  the 

word  endeavor"  and  this  endeavor  is  of  two  kinds,  attractive  and 

and    repulsive;    desire    and   aversion.     And   he  uses  the  terms 

towards   something   as   expressing   the  motion  of  desire  and  from- 

Ward  something  as   expressing   the   motion   of  aversion,   which   in 

themselves,  as   Bain   recognizes,  clearly  show  that  Hobbes  uses 

the  term  motion  not  in  a  metaphorical  but  in  an  actual,  objective 
sense. 

Hobbes'  ethical  doctrines  are  not  set  out  distinctively  in  any 
one  book,  but  are  to  be  gathered  from  his  works  in  general, 
entitled  Leviathan,  De  doe,  De  Homine,  De  Corpore  Politico  and  his 
Treatise  on  Human  Nature. 

Good,  he  defines  as  the  object  of  man's  desire,  and  evil  as  the 
object  of  his  aversion  both  always  relative  terms.  Good,  he 
says,  as  a  means  is  useful,  as  the  end  of  desire  it  is  deligetful, 
pleasure-giving  ;  and  so  of  evil,  the  opposite  of  these.  The  ideas 
of  moral  conduct  which  Hobbes  entertained  are  by  him  incident- 
ally mentioned  here  and  there  in  his  writings  in  remarks  sub- 
stantially as  follows  : 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  39 

Covetousness,  the  desire  for  riches,  as  a  name  signifies  the  blame 
that  men  contending  for  riches  bestow  upon  others  who  succeed 
in  obtaining  them  ;  but  the  desire  itself,  he  says,  is  blameworthy 
or  otherwise  according  to  the  means  used  in  obtaining  riches. 
Curiosity  is  defined  as  "  a  lust  of  the  mind  that  by  a  perseverance 
of  delight  in  the  continual  generation  of  knowledge,  exceedeth  the 
short  vehemence  of  any  carnal  pleasure. "  Pity  is  "  grief  for  the 
calamity  of  another,  arising  from  the  imagination  of  the  like  ca- 
lamity befalling  one's  self ;  "  and  he  adds  that  "  the  best  men 
have  therefore,  least  pity  for  calamity  arising  from  great  w^icked- 
ness.  Contempt,  or  "  little  sense  of  the  calamity  of  others,  pro- 
ceeds from  security  of  one's  own  fortune. "  "  For  that  any  man 
should  take  pleasure  in  other  men's  great  harms,  without  other 
end  of  his  own,  1  do  not  conceive  as  possible. " 

The  question  of  "  freedom  of  the  will,"  though  strictly  speak- 
ing is  a  psychological  problem,  has  a  vital  connection  with  the 
science  of  ethics  because  of  the  almost  universal  association  of 
will  with  conduct,  and  the  nearly  universal  opinion  of  mankind 
that  men  may  do  right  or  wrong  voluntarily  regardless  of  the  de- 
termining influence  of  environment.  Hobbes,  like  all  other  writers 
on  human  nature,  gave  attention  to  this  problem.  He  thought 
that  man  possessed  the  freedom  to  do  or  to  omit  to  do  according 
to  appetite  or  aversion,  but  that  in  a  "state  of  deliberation  wherein 
is  kept  up  a  constant  succession  of  alternating  desires  and  aver- 
sions," this  freedom  ceases  until  "the  thing  is  judged  impossible, 
or  it  is  done,  according  as  aversion  or  appetite  triumphs  at  last." 
This  is  the  doctrine  of  determinism  the  will  to  do  or  not  to  do 
determined  by  desire  or  aversion. 

He  considered  ethics  as  one  of  the  divisions  of  natural  philos- 
ophy, in  which  is  considered  the  consequences  of  human  passions, 
and  "because  the  passions  are  qualities  of  bodies,  it  falls  more  im- 
mediately under  the  head  of  physics."  He  considered  ethics  as 
"part  of  the  science  of  man  (as  a  natural  body),  and  it  is  always 
treated  as  such.  In  order  to  comprehend  the  whole  of  Hobbes' 
ethical  system,  it  is  necessary  to  study  his  civil  philosophy,  and 
his  "  Politico,'*  in  which  he  "  deals  with  consequences  from  the 


40  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

institution    of   commonwealths,    first,   to  the  rights  and  duties  of 
the  sovereign,  and,  second,  to  duty  and  right  of  the  subject. " 

Hobbes  defines  lex  naluralis  a  law  of  nature  as  "a  genera' 
rule  found  out  b\)  reason,  forbidding  a  man  to  do  what  directly  or 
indirectly  is  destructive  of  his  life,  or  to  omit  what  he  thinks  may 
best  preserve  it. "  And  he  declares  right  and  law  to  be  exact  op- 
posites,  defining  right  as  liberty  and  law  as  obligation.  He  con- 
cludes that  justice  is  a  rule  of  reason  and  therefore  a  law  of  na- 
ture. He  does  not  accept  the  notion  that  laws  of  natiire  are  to 
be  supposed  conducive  to  the  attainment  of  eternal  felicity.  "For 
that,  the  knowledge  of  the  future  life  (5  too  uncertain."  The  laws 
of  nature,  he  supposes  to  be  conducive  to  the  preservation  of 
life  on  earth. 

He  considers  penalties  as  means  for  correcting  offenders  and 
the  proper  directing  of  the  conduct  of  others;  i.  e.,  for  profit  and 
example,  not  for  "  glorying  in  the  hurt  of  another,  tending  to  no 
end."     Any  other  punishment  is  cruelty. 

Hobbes  recognizes  as  the  moral  standard  the  law  of  the  State — 
*'  self-interest  or  individual  utility  masked  as  regard  for  estab- 
lished order.  "  He  writes  of  "  the  natural  state  "  of  man  and  the 
social  state,  meaning,  respectively,  man  as  an  individual  without 
relations  to  others  in  a  government,  and  man  living  in  society 
under  State  law.  In  the  natural  condition  he  considers  self-in- 
terest alone  the  standard,  "  but  not  without  responsibility  to  God, 
in  case  it  is  not  sougnt,  as  far  as  other  men  will  allow,  by  the 
practice  of  the  dictates  of  reason  or  laws  of  nature."  The  moral 
faculty,  m  either  case,  is  reason  comprehending  the  aims  of  the 
individual  or  society,  attending  to  the  laws  of  nature  or  of  the 
State. 

In  the  relation  of  ethics  to  politics,  he  recognizes  the  civil  au- 
thority, the  laws  of  the  State,  only  as  the  source  of  rules  of  con- 
duct. As  to  religion,  he  assumes  that  his  reasoned  deductions 
of  the  laws  of  nature  are  equivalent  to,  or  coincident  with  the 
precepts  of  divine  revelation.  His  moral  code,  under  the  name 
of  the  "laws  of  nature  in  force  in  the  natural  state  under  divine 
sanction,"  is   in  little  or  no  respect  different  from  the  commonly- 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  41 

accepted  meixims  of  ideas  of  the  virtues.  He  incidentally  and 
not  veiy  forcibly  refers  to  "  the  sanctions  of  a  future  life  "  as 
means  of  enforcing  the  laws  of  nature  and  giving  "  additional 
support  to  the  commands  of  the  sovereign  "  in  the  social  state  ; 
i.  e.  the  political  State. 

He  opposes  Aristotle  in  the  doctrine  of  human  equality,  hold- 
ing that  all  men  are  by  nature  equal — initial  idea  in  our  Ameri- 
can Declaration  of  Independence.  He  was  a  liberalist  in  the 
sense  that  he  taught  that  men  were  to  claim  for  themselves  no 
rights  except  such  as  they  were  willing  others  should  have.  He 
treats  at  length  on  the  laws  of  nature  and  sums  them  all  up  in 
the  Golden  Rule  as  expressed  by  Confucius — "  Do  not  that  to 
another  which  thou  wouldst  not  have  done  to  thyself." 

Hobbes  declares  that  the  so-called  laws  of  nature — "  the  dic- 
tates of  reason  " — are  not  properly  called  laws,  because  "  law- 
properly,  is  the  word  of  him  that  by  right  hath  command  over 
others  ;"  but  when  considered  not  as  conclusions  of  reason,  but 
"  as  delivered  in  the  word  of  God,  that  by  right  commands  all. 
then  they  are  properly  called  laws."  And  here  his  ethics  merges 
into  religion.  He  lays  down  his  moral  code  under  the  name  of 
"  Laws  of  Nature  in  force  in  the  Natural  State  under  Divine 
Sanction." 

RICHARD   CUMBERLAND. 

This  author  wrote  and  published  in  1672  a  work  in  Latin  en- 
titled De  Legihus  Natures  disquisitio  Philosophica  contra  Hohhium  in- 
stituta,  from  which  may  be  summarized  his  views  of  ethics,  but 
not  very  satisfactorily  in  a  limited  space.      Briefly  : 

1 .  The  Standard  of  moral  good  is  given  in  the  laws  of  nature, 
which  may  be  generalized  as  the  one  great  law  of  "  Benevolence 
to  all  rational  agents,"  the  endeavor  to  the  utmost  to  promote  the 
good  of  all.  "  No  action  can  be  called  morally  good  that  does 
not  in  its  own  nature  contribute  somewhat  to  the  happiness  of 
men  "  Individual  happiness  is  best  secured  through  the  promo- 
tion of  the  general  good,  is  strongly  emphasized.  He  professes 
"  not  to  make  an  induction  as  regards  the  character  of  actions 
from  the  observation  of  their  effects,  but  to  deduce  the  propriety 


42  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

of  benevolent  actions  from  the  consideration  of  the  character  and 
position  of  rational  agents  in  nature.  Rules  of  conduct,  all  di- 
rected to  the  promotion  of  the  happiness  of  rational  agents,  may 
thus  be  found  in  the  form  of  propositions  impressed  upon  the 
mind  by  the  nature  of  things;  and  these  are  then  interpreted  to 
be  laws  of  nature,  promulgated  by  God  [!]  with  the  natural  effects 
of  actions  as  sanctions  of  reward  and  punishment  to  enforce 
them."  A  bold  stand  for  the  natural  basis  of  ethics  with  a  su- 
perstitious retreat  to  a  religious  or  theological  doctrine  of  the 
source  of  ethical  information. 

2.  Reason  is  the  faculty  which  apprehends  the  nature  of  things 
and  determines  accordingly  the  line  of  conduct  best  adapted  to 
promote  the  happiness  of  "  rational  agents." 

As  to  the  question  of  "  innate  ideas,  Cumberland  held  himself 
in  a  peculiarly  compromising  attitude.  1  cannot  better  state  the 
case  in  this  matter  than  to  quote  Prof.  Baine's  remark  on  page 
1 43  of  his  Moral  Science  : 

"  He  expressly  leaves  aside  the  supposition  that  we  have  innate 
ideas  of  the  laws  of  nature  whereby  conduct  is  to  be  guided.  He 
has  not,  he  says,  been  so  happy  as  to  learn  the  laws  of  nature  by 
so  short  a  way  [true  enough],  and  thinks  it  ill-advised  to  build 
the  doctrine  of  natural  religion  and  morality  upon  a  hypothesis 
that  has  been  rejected  by  the  generality  of  philosophers,  as  well 
heathen  as  Christian.  Yet  he  [  mark  this  ]  declines  to  oppose 
the  doctrine  of  innate  ideas  because  it  looks  with  a  friendly  eye 
upon  piety  and  morality  [  !  ]  ;  and  perhaps  it  may  be  the  case 
that  such  ideas  are  both  born  with  us  and  afterwards  impressed 
upon  us  from  without." 

He  claims  for  man  an  inherent  altruistic  principle  and  rejects 
the  notion  that  all  benevolence  may  be  resolved  back  into  self- 
seeking.  And  he  lays  much  stress  upon  the  doctrine  that  "  be- 
nevolence of  all  to  all  accords  best  with  the  whole  frame  of  na- 
ture," and  that  this  "  stands  forth  with  perfect  evidence  upon  a 
rational  apprehension  of  the  universe  as  the  great  law  of  nature. ' 
The  happiness  of  the  individual  is  most  effectually  secured 
through  the  promotion  of  the  happiness  of  all. 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  43 

3.  By  a  deduction  from  the  "  great  law  of  nature,"  as  expressed 
by  him,  he  arrives  at  his  moral  code.  His  mixture  of  theology 
with  ethics  is  plain  when  he  classifies  the  "common  good"  as 
comprehending  "  the  honor  of  God  and  happiness  of  men,  as  na- 
tions, families  and  individuals."  And  he  classifies  "  rights  "  thus: 
Rights  of  God  (to  honor,  glory,  etc.  ),  and  rights  of  men  ( to  ad- 
vantages whereby  they  may  "  preserve  and  perpetuate  them- 
selves and  be  useful  to  others").  As  Bain  says,  "  with  reference 
to  religion  "  Cumberland  "  professes  to  abstain  entirely  from  theo- 
logical questions,  and  does  abstain  from  mixing  up  the  doctrmes 
of  Revelation.  But  he  attaches  a  distinctly  divine  authority  to 
his  moral  rules  and  supplements  earthly  by  supernatural  sanc- 
tions." This  is  certainly  a  very  queer  attitude — so  transparently  ' 
paradoxical  a  statement  by  a  reputed  philosopher ! 

RALPH  CUDWORTH. 

Another  opponent  of  Hobbes  was  Ralph  Cudworth,  who  was 
called,  with  Clarke,  Wollaston  and  Price,  a  rationalist  moralist. 
Though  he  lived  from  1617  to  1688,  the  publication  of  his  writ- 
ings on  morality  did  not  occur  until  1731,  forty  years  after  his 
death.  He  had,  however,  previously  written  and  published  a 
work.  Intellectual  System  of  the  Universe,  in  which  he  opposes  what 
he  termed  "  the  atheistical  fate  of  Epicurus  and  others,  but  in 
this  posthumus  work  entitled  Treatise  Concerning  Eternal  and  Im- 
mutable Morality,  he  specially  opposes  the  "  theological  fate  "  of 
Hobbes  in  his  "  arbitrarily  omnipotent  Deity,"  on  the  ground  that 
Hobbes  had  revived  the  opinions  of  Protagoras  and  the  ancient 
Greek  philosophers  that  "  take  away  the  essential  and  eternal 
discrimination  of  moral  good  and  evil,  just  and  unjust." 

In  his  great  work,  Cudworth  first  amasses  a  large  amount  of 
facts  regarding  the  founding  of  "  distinctions  between  right  and 
wrong  upon  mere  arbitrary  disposition,  whether  of  God  or  the 
State  of  men,"  and  then  proceeds  to  present  his  own  views. 

He  contended  that  moral  good  and  evil,  justice  and  injustice, 
honesty  and  dishonesty,  were  not  mere  names  for  willed  or  com- 
manded on]y,  but  have  a  reality,  and  cannot  possibly  be  arbitrary 


44  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

things  made  by  u;/// without  nature ;  and  that  "  it  is  universally 
true  that  things  are  what  they  are  not  by  will,  but  by  nature." 
His  theory  of  the  will  of  God  as  "the  efficient  cause  of  all  things, 
but  not  the  formal  cause  of  anything  besides  itself,"  indicates  the 
metaphysical  character  of  his  so-called  rationalism ;  and  Prof. 
Bain  remarks  that  "  by  far  the  largest  part  of  Cud  worth's  treatise 
consists  of  a  general  metaphysical  argument  to  establish  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  mind's  faculty  of  knowledge  with  reference  to 
sense  and  experience. " 

The  moral  distinctions  of  good  and  evil  he  considers  eternal 
and  immutable  verities  "  comprehended  in  the  mind  or  intellect 
of  Deity  "  and  from  him  our  "particular  intellects"  derive  them  ! 
He  speaks,  incidentally,  of  "  the  motions  of  particles  that  consti- 
tutes the  whole  world,"  and  of  the  "actions  or  souls  of  men" — 
thus  defining  the  "  soul  "  as  an  intellectual  action  only.  He  seems 
to  believe  fully  in  the  existence  of  innate  ideas  of  good  and  evil. 
He  finds  that  "  the  intellectual  faculty  cognizes  the  moral  verities 
within  itself, "  and  that  "  morality  is  not  dependent  upon  the 
Deity  in  any  other  sense  than  the  whole  frame  of  things  is. "  He 
leaves  the  matter  of  happiness  and  pain  as  reward  and  penalty 
wholly  out  of  his  discussions. 

SAMUEL   CLARKE. 

Although  called  one  of  the  rational  moralists,  Clarke  was  a 
theologian  (living  from  1675  to  1729)  who  opposed  the  system  of 
Hobbes  and  the  writings  of  Spinoza  and  others  in  "  A  Discourse 
Concerning  the  Being  and  Attributes  of  God,  the  Obligations  of  Nat- 
ural Religion  and  the  Truth  and  Certainty  of  the  Christian  Religion" 

a  series  of  lecture-sermons.  His  whole  system  is  embraced  in 
the  brief  statement  that  "  the  same  necessary  and  eternal  different 
Relations  that  different  Things  bear  one  to  another,  and  the  same 
consequent  fitness  or  unfitness  of  the  application  of  different 
things  or  different  relations  one  to  another,  with  regard  to  which 
the  will  of  God  always  and  necessarily  does  determine  itself  to 
choose  i-O  act  only  what  is  agreeable  to  justice,  equity,  goodness 
and  truth,  in  order  to  the  welfare  of  the  whole  universe,  ought 
likewise  constantly  to  determine  the  wills  of  all  subordinate  ra- 


THE  ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  45 

tional  beings  to  govern  all  their  actions  by  the  same  rules  for  the 
good  of  the  public,  in  their  respective  stations. "  This  is  equiva- 
lent, in  my  understanding,  to  saying  that  as  the  will  of  God  is 
determined  by  the  necessity  of  goodness,  justice,  etc.,  as  indis- 
pensable to  the  welfare  of  the  universe,  so  the  will  of  man  should 
be  determined  by  these  principles  for  the  welfare  of  the  public  — 
a  renunciation  of  the  usual  form  of  the  free  will  doctrine,  or  in- 
determinism  even  of  the  will  of  God.  He  explains  further  that 
"  these  eternal  and  necessary  differences  of  things  make  it  fit  and 
reasonable  for  creatures  so  to  act;  they  cause  it  to  be  their  duty, 
or  lay  an  obligation  on  them  so  to  do,  even  separate  from  the 
consideration  of  these  rules  being  the  positive  will  or  command 
of  God,  and  also  antecedent  to  any  respect,  or  regard,  expecta- 
tion or  apprehension  of  any  particular  private  and  personal  ad- 
vantage or  disadvantage,  reward  or  punishment,  either  present  or 
future,  annexed  either  by  natural  consequences  or  by  positive  ap- 
pointment, to  the  practicing  or  neglecting  of  these  rules." 

That  is,  the  will  of  man  should  be  determined  to  do  justly,  etc., 
for  the  welfare  of  the  public — the  community — without  reference 
to  the  rewards  or  punishments  expected  from  nature  or  God  as 
positively  appointed  and  revealed  through  divine  scriptures.  He 
declares  the  "  Eternal  Reason  of  Things"  to  be  the  original  obli- 
gation of  all  to  right  conduct,  and  that  "  the  sanction  of  re- 
wards and  punishments,  though  truly  the  most  effectual  means 
of  keeping  creatures  in  their  duty,  is  only  a  secondary  and  ad- 
ditional obligation." 

In  considering  human  duties,  he  confines  himself  to  three  gen- 
eral divisions  of  them,  and,  theologian  as  he  is,  names  first  of 
these  as  "  duties  in  respect  of  Got/ (veneration,  love,  worship  etc.)," 
and  then  adds  "  duties  in  respect  of  our  fellow-creatures."  embra- 
cing justice  and  equity,  the  Golden  Rule,  benevolence,  etc.  Here 
he  positively  asserts  that  the  will  of  God  is  determined  by  the  fit- 
ness and  reasonabless  of  things,  by  saying  that  "  the  good  being 
the  fit  and  reasonable,  the  greatest  good  is  the  most  fit  and  reason- 
able ;  by  this  God^s  action  is  determined,  and  so  ought  ours." 

Clarke  makes  one    supremely  ridiculous  assertion,  which  con- 


46  Tl  IE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

tradicts  all  human  experience,  that  1  will  quote  here  as  a  curiosity. 
He  says:  "It  would  be  impossible  for  men  not  to  be  as  much 
ashamed  of  doin§  iniquily  as  they  are  of  believing  contradictions." 
Why,  men,  especially  Christians,  are  not  only  not  ashamed  of 
believing  contradictions,  but  glory  in  the  act !  Their  Bible  and 
their  creeds  are  notoriously  contradictory,  and  they  reverence 
them  and  hug  to  their  bosoms  the  fond  delusions  they  contain. 

He  finally  states  the  case  of  God  thus  ;  "  Nothing  is  holy  and 
good  because  God  commands  it,  but  he  commands  it  because  it 
is  holy  and  good."  But  he  concludes,  as  a  theologian,  that  "the 
eternal  moral  obligations  founded  on  the  natural  differences  of 
things,  are  at  the  same  time  the  express  will  and  command  of 
God  to  all  creatures,  and  must  necessarily  and  certainly  be  at- 
tended with  rewards  and  punishments  in  a  future  stale  !^^ 

In  summing  up  Clarke's  arguments.  Prof.  Bain  says  that  "his 
ethical  disquisition  is  only  a  part  of  a  theological  argument," 
which  "helps  to  explain  his  assertion  of  the  independence  as 
well  as  of  the  insufficiency  of  morality.  The  final  outcome  of 
the  discussion  is  that  morality  needs  the  support  of  Revelation  ; 
but,  to  get  from  this  an  argument  for  the  truth  of  Revelation  it  is 
necessary  that  morality  should  have  an  independent  formation  in 
the  nature  of  things, apart  from  any  direct  divine  appointment." 

William  IVallaston  is  another  of  those  writers  classed  with  the 
rationalistic  moralists.  He  wrote  a  work,  Religion  of  Nature  De- 
lineated, in  which  he  expounds  his  ethical  views,  which  he  claims 
are  in  conformity  with  the  facts  of  science.  He  declares  that 
reason  is  the  judge  of  what  is  true  and  false,  and  the  only  faculty 
concerned  in  determining  right  and  wrong.  He  holds  that  his 
doctrine  is  of  "  a  progressive  morality  that  keeps  pace  with  and 
depends  upon  the  progress  of  science  "  He  distinguishes  error 
from  vice,  by  defining  the  former  as  "  the  affirmation  by  action  of 
a  false  proposition,  thought  [believed]  to  be  true  ;"  the  action  is 
bad,  but  the  actor  is  morally  innocent. 

JOHN    LOCKE. 
Few    philosophical   writers   of   the   modern   schools   are  more 
widely  known  or  frequently   referred   to  than  John  Locke,  who 
lived  from  1632  to  1  704.     Still,  as  to  ?iny  ethical  .system,  he  made 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  47 

no  effort  distinct  from  his  general  philosophical  expositions.  The 
Essay  on  the  Understanding  is  his  great  work,  and  from  it  may  be 
gathered  his  views  on  ethical  questions,  which,  though  generally 
very  clearly  expressed,  are  not  always  consistent,  but  sometimes 
self-contradictory. 

Locke  was  a  determined  and  persistent  opponent  of  the  doc- 
trine of  innate  moral  ideas.  His  arguments  against  the  existence 
in  human  nature  of  an  inherent  knowledge  of  right  and  wrong, 
are  briefly,  merely  named  as  follows:  1.  Innate  practical  prin- 
ciples of  morality  are  for  the  most  part  not  self-evident ;  2.  There 
is  not  one  of  them  universally  accepted  by  mankind  ;  3.  "  There 
is  no  rule  of  moral  action  that  may  not  have  a  reason  demanded 
for  it;"  4.  Moral  rules  differ  among  different  peoples  according 
to  their  ideas  of  what  constitutes  happiness  ;  5.  "  The  support- 
ers of  the  doctrine  of  innate  principles  are  unable  to  point  out 
distinctly  what  they  are." 

He  attributes  the  wrong-doing  of  men  to  wrong  or  fallacious 
judgment ;  from  ignorance  and  inadvertance.  They  are  victims  of 
mere  appearances,  they  make  wrong  decisions  in  comparing  pres- 
ent with  future  pains,  but  never  mistake  a  present  pleasure  or  pain- 
Locke  classifies  the  moral  rules  into  three  kinds  :  The  Divine 
Law  ("  whether  promulgated  by  the  light  of  nature  or  by  revela- 
tion, and  enforced  by  rewards  and  punishments  in  a  future  life"  ); 
The  Civil  Law — the  laws  of  government  or  the  State — sup- 
ported by  the  penalties  imposed  by  the  civil  judges  ;  the  Law  of 
Reputation  or  opinion  (approbation  or  disapprobation  of  one's 
fellow-men).  And  he  defines  morality  as  the  "  reference  of  all 
actions  to  one  or  other  of  these  three  laws,  and  ascribes  our 
knowledge  of  right  and  wrong  to  "  two  leading  sources,  sensa- 
tion and  reflection  "     observation  and  reason. 

Locke's  views  may  be  briefly  summarized  as  follows : 
As  to  .he  moral  standard  "  the  production  of  pleasure  and 
pain  to  sentient  beings  is  the  ultimate  foundation  of  moral  good 
and  evil;"  and  that  "morality  is  a  system  of  law  enacted  by  one 
or  other  of  three  different  authorities."  As  to  the  origin  of  ethi- 
cal  ideas  :  they  are  not  innate,  but  are  "  generalities  of  moral  ac- 


48  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

tions,"  discerned  from  our  pleasures  and  pains,  interpretation  of 
"the  laws  of  God,  the  Nation  and  Public  Opinion,'  the  largest 
portion  being  due  to  custom  and  education.  His  "chief  good" 
is  briefly,  the  procuring  of  happiness  and  avoiding  of  pain.  As 
to  religion,  or  theology,  he  thought  that  "  by  the  exercise  of 
reason  we  may  discover  the  existence  and  attributes  of  God  and 
and  our  duties  to  him  "  his  will  being  "  the  highest  moral  rule, 
the  true  touchstone  of  moral  rectitude." 

We  see,  then,  that  Locke  in  substance  makes  morality  depen- 
dent upon  theologic  belief,  and  a  component  of  a  religion. 

RICHARD     PRICE. 

Though  Price  lived  and  wrote  later  than  Butler  and  Hume, 
yet  to  be  considered  in  these  papers,  1  choose  to  discuss  his  theo- 
ries now  in  connection  with  those  of  the  other  so-called  rational- 
ist moralists.  He  lived  from  1723  to  1791.  He  wrote  a  work 
entitled  A  Reoiexo  of  the  Principal  Questions  of  Morals,  "  particu- 
larly those  respecting  the  origin  of  ideas  of  virtue,  its  nature,  re- 
lation to  the  Deity,  obligation,  subject-matter  and  sanctions." 
To  this  was  later  added  an  appendix  on  the  "  Being  and  Attri- 
butes of  the  Deity." 

Although  Price  covers  much  ground,  1  can  here  only  make  a 
very  condensed  abstract  of  his  ethical  system,  for  want  of  space. 
Price's  moral  standard — that  which  determines  right  and  wrong 
— is  "  a  perception  of  the  reason  or  the  understanding — a  sense 
of  fitness  or  congruity  between  actions  and  the  agents  and  all  the 
circumstances  attending  them. "  But  he  recedes  from  this  posi- 
tion to  some  extent  in  his  discussion,  admitting  that  the  "  feelings 
of  the  heart, "  etc.,  have  some  part  in  determining  right  and  wrong. 
and  saying  that  only  persons  of  superior  minds  are  capable  of 
discovering  virtue  or  right  by  the  reason  or  understanding !  He 
considers  that  utility  is  one  ground  of  justice,  but  not  the  sole 
basis  of  it.  He  admits  the  influence  of  custom  and  education  in 
modifying  our  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  and  seems  to  somewhat 
hazily  defend  the  notion  of  "  disinterested  benevolence." 

Happiness  is  an  object,  he  thinks  of  "  essential  and  eternal 
value  " — "  the  end  and  the  only  end  of  God's  providence  and  gov- 
ernment," possible  to  be  conceived  of  by  men.  Virtue  tends  to 
this  end  but  does  not  invariably  attain  it. 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  49 

JOSEPH   BUTLER. 

Joseph  Butler  (1692  to  1752)  was  the  author  of  a  number  of 
books  and  published  sermons,  but  is  chiefly  known  through  his 
Analogy,  in  this  and  his  other  works  may  be  found  the  ele- 
ments of  his  ethical  system.  He  wrote  a  Dissertation  on  Virtue 
in  which  he  maintained  that  there  existed  in  man  "a  moral  na- 
ture apart  from  both  prudence  and  benevolence;"  that  "a  moral 
government  supposes  a  moral  nature  in  man" — an  inherent 
power  of  distinguishing  right  from  wrong ;  a  sort  of  moral  per- 
ception aside  from  reason,  and,  apparently,  akin  to  instinct;  and 
he  maintains  that  "virtue  is  not  wholly  resolvable  into  benevo- 
lence, or  the  general  good." 

In  his  work  entitled  Human  Nature,  Butler's  ethical  ideas  are 
most  directly  and  definitely  set  out,  and  in  this  he  maintains  that 
ethics  is  founded  upon  the  constitution  of  the  mind. 

He  defines  conscience  as  "a  principle  of  reflection  in  men, 
whereby  they  distinguish  between,  approve  and  disapprove,  their 
own  actions."  Butler's  doctrine  of  conscience  as  an  inherent 
mental  faculty  is  clearly  controverted  in  a  few  words  by  Alexan- 
der Bain,  thus : 

"The  proper  reply  is  to  analyze  conscience  ;  showing  at  the  same  time, 
from  its  very  great  discrepancies  in  different  minds,  that  it  is  a  growth 
or  product,  corresponding  to  the  education  and  circumstances  of  each, 
although  of  course  involving  the  common  elements  of  the   mind." 

Summarized,  Butler's  ethics  are  briefly  as  follows  :  The  stand- 
ard of  r'ght  and  wrong  is  the  conscience,  or  reflective  faculty. 
Conscience  is  one  of  the  three  divisions  of  the  mind,  as  set  out  in 
his  psychology,  and  is  a  distinct  and  primitive  element  of  man's 
mental  constitution.  He  does  not  set  up  any  argument  for  or 
against  the  freedom  of  the  will. 

In  his  theory  of  happiness,  he  says  men  cannot  secure  it  by  the 
pursuit  of  mere  self-interest,  but  must  add  to  this  action  response 
to  their  inherent  benevolent  impulses  under  the  guidance  of  the 
conscience ;  "  virtue  is  happiness,  even  in  this  world,  and,  if 
there  be  any  exception  to  the  rule,  it  will  be  rectified  in  another 
world"  after  death.      He  disallowed  that  men  were  ever  required 


50  THE  ORIGIN    AND    KVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

to  make  uncompensated  sacrifices  for  any  end.  His  moral  code 
has  no  peculiarities  originated  by  him. 

FRANCIS     HUTCHESON. 

Who  lived  from  1694  to  1  747,  wrote  systematically  of  ethics, 
and  in  his  treatment  of  subjects  covers  a  wide  field.  His  dis- 
tinctive!} ethical  work,  A  System  of  Moral  Philosophy,  was  pub- 
lished after  his  death  ;  and  from  it  can  best  be  secured  a  com- 
plete mastery  of  his  doctrines.  Herein  1  can  but  very  briefly  re- 
fer to  some    chief  points,  and  pass   on. 

He  opens  his  discussion  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  great  work 
by  declaring  that  "the  aim  of  moral  philosophy  is  to  point  out 
the  course  of  action  that  will  best  promote  the  highest  happiness 
and  perfection  of  men,  by  the  light  of  human  nature  and  to  the 
exclusion  of  revelation  ;  thus  to  indicate  the  rules  of  conduct  that 
make  up  the  law  of  nature."  This,  on  the  face  of  it,  is  Rational- 
ism in  ethics  ;  but  he  was  a  deist,  and  in  considering  the  highest 
happiness  of  men,  he  says,  in  his  eighth  chapter  of  Book  I,  that 
he  must  deal  with  "one  object  of  affection  to  every  rational  mind," 
which  is  the  Deity,  or  "  mind  in  the  universe."  He  proceeds  in 
chapter  9  to  prove  "the  existence  of  an  original  mind  [  in  nature] 
from  design,  etc.,  in  the  world,"  and  "finds  this  mind  to  be  be- 
nevolent," which  leads  him  into  the  consideration  of  evil  and  the 
necessity  of  giving  reasons  for  its  existence,  setting  forth  its  uses, 
"  narrowing  its  range  as  compared  with  good,  and  finally  re- 
ducing it  by  the  consideration  and  proof  of  immortality."  And 
he  finally  sets  forth  other  attributes  of  this  immanent  deity  as 
providence,  holiness,  justice  etc.  In  the  next  chapter  he  dis- 
cusses man's  affection  for,  duly  to  and  worship  of  the  deity  nf 
nature,  which  he  declares  "  the  moral  sense  specially  enjoins." 
But  he  apparently  believed  that  the  efficacy  of  prayer  was  not  in 
effecting  any  change  in  the  will  or  acts  of  deity,  but  was  of  a 
purely  subjective  nature,  affecting  the  mind  of  the  true  worship- 
per. He  considered  the  acknowledgment  of  the  existence  of  God 
as  the  exercise  of  the  inherent  moral  factor  and  the  source  of  the 
highest  happiness.      Thus  it  is  plain  that  Hutcheson's  ethics  was 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  51 

a  combination  of  morals  with  theological  dogmas  and  rites,  con- 
stituting a  religion  rather  than  a  moral  philosophy  per  se. 

He  held  that  "  marriage  should  be  a  perpetual  union  upon 
equal  terms,  'and  not  such  a  one  wherein  the  one  party  stipu- 
lates to  himself  a  right  of  governing  in  all  domestic  affairs,  and 
the  other  promising  subjection '."  He  favored  divorce  in  extreme 
cases  of  personal  enmity,  desertion,  etc. 

He  considers  the  standard  of  right  and  wrong  to  be  identical 
with  the  inherent  moral  faculty.  He  considers  the  sentiments  or 
feelings  to  be  of  two  kinds,  self-regarding  and  benevolent,  and 
affirms  the  existence  of  the  altruistic  sentiment — "  pure  disinter- 
estedness, a  calm  regard  for  the  most  extended  well-being."  By 
"calm"  he  apparently  means  a  deliberate  reasoning  as  opposed 
to  passionate  desire  for  self-gratification.  He  considers  the  pleas- 
ures of  sympathy  and  mDral  goodness,  including  piety,  as  of 
"the  highest  rank,"  and  "the  passive  sensations  in  the  lowest 
rank." 

In  discussing  practical  morals,  the  details  of  human  duty,  he 
loses  sight  of  his  fundamental  doctrine  of  an  inherent  "  moral 
sense,"  and  "  draws  his  rules,  most  of  them  from  Roman  law, 
the  rest  chiefly  from  manifest  convenience." 

He  did  not  discuss  the  question  of  freedom  of  the  will,  but 
entered  extensively  into  the  consideration  of  the  relation  of  ethics 
to  civil  polity — civil  government.  He  thought  "opinions  should 
be  tolerated,  except  atheism  and  the  denial  of  moral  obligations." 

Bernard  De  Mandeville  wrote  and  published  in  1  7 1 4  a  work 
entitled  The  Fable  of  the  Bees  ;  "  or  Private  Vices  Public  Benefits" 
—a  satire  upon  "artificial  society,"  in  which  he  attempts  to  ex- 
pose the  "  hollowness  of  the  so-called  dignity  of  human  nature." 
It  has  been  said  of  him  that  he  "  examined  not  what  human  na- 
ture ought  to  he,  but  what  it  really  is"  which  is  the  only  rational 
method  of  inquiry  in  establishing  a  science  of  ethics.  He  af- 
firmed that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  inherent  morality  in  man, 
but  that  men  are  moral  from  a  policy  of  self-interest.  He  de- 
clared that  "  man  centers  everything  in  himself,  and  neither  loves 
nor  hates  but  for  his  own  sake,"  and  that  "  we  have  no  mnate  love 


52  T\  IE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    0\-    ETHICS 

for  our  fellows."  He  taught  that  virtue  has  its  reward  "  in 
the  pleasure  of  contemplating  one's  own  worth,"  and  denied  that 
there  is  any  such  thing  as  absolute  self-denial.  He  defined  charity 
as  "  that  virtue  by  which  part  of  that  sincere  love  we  have  for 
ourselves  is  transferred  pure  and  unmixed  to  others  (not  friends 
or  relatives  ),  whom  we  have  no  obligation  to,  nor  hope  or  expect 
anything  from."  And  he  considered  pity  and  compassion  as 
only  counterfeits  of  true  charity  that  "  pity  is  as  much  a  frailty 
of  our  nature  as  anger,  pride,  or  fear."  But  the  fallacy  of  this  is 
completely  exposed  by  the  demonstrations  of  biological  science 
that  anger,  pride  and  fear,  as  well  as  sympathy  or  "  pity,"  are  not 
"frailties"  of  our  nature,  but  positive  psychic  functions  whose 
end  is  the  preservation  of  the  life  and  welfare  of  the  individual 
and  the  species.  But  I  think  he  was  scientifically  correct  in  say- 
ing our  acts  resulting  from  the  emotion  of  pity  are  put  forth  for 
our  own  relief  from  the  pain  of  sympathetic  suffering  with  others, 
and  so  it  is  in  the  last  analysis  a  matter  of  self-interest.  But  this 
is  an  objective  view,  while  our  acts  resulting  from  pity  or  sym- 
pathy are  from  subjective  feelings,  not  reflective,  calculating 
reasoning.  That  is,  they  are,  in  a  scientific  sense,  reflex  actions. 

A  notable  remark  by  Mandeville  is  well  worth  quoting  and  seri- 
ous consideration,  viz :  "  So  silly  a  creature  is  man  as  that,  intoxi- 
cated with  the  fumes  of  vanity,  he  can  feast  on  the  thought  of 
the  praises  that  shall  be  paid  his  memory  in  future  ages  with  so 
much  ecstasy  as  to  neglect  his  present  life  nay,  court  and  covet 
death,  if  he  but  imagines  it  will  add  to  the  glory  he  acquired  be- 
fore." But  from  a  scientific  point  of  view  this  is  no  exception  to 
the  general  principles  of  self-preservation  and  race-preservation 
provided  by  nature  for  all  living  things.  1  .iving  beings  are  coaxed 
like  "  stubborn  "  children,  by  Dame  Nature,  and  promised  re- 
wards of  tinsel  and  sensuous  pleasures  that  are  really  cheats  and 
apparently  premeditated  deceptions,  in  order  to  allure  such  beings 
into  courses  of  conduct  w^hich  leads  to  self-preservation  and  spe- 
cies preservation  and  evolution,  or  adaptation  to  new  environment- 
Nature  adapts  means  to  ends  regardless  of  our  human  views  of 
right  and  wrong,  and  seems   to  act   upon  the  principle  that  "  the 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  53 

end  justifies  the  means" — that  a  desirable  result  makes  right, 
means  that  directed  to  other  ends  would  be  wrong.  And  human 
beings  practically  recognize  the  ethical  correctness — the  justness 
—  -of  this  principle  by  deceiving  children,  the  sick,  the  insane,  the 
criminal,  the  ignorant,  and  all  kinds  of  people,  as  well  as  the 
"  lower  animals,"  in  order  to  induce  them  to  act  in  ways  desired 
and  believed  to  be  "  right  "  by  those  practicing  the  deception — 
telling  of  "  white  lies,"  etc. 

DAVID    HUME. 

David  Hume  lived  from  1711  to  1776,  and  no  name  of 
that  century  is  better  known  to  controversialists  on  all  sides 
of  ethical  and  theological  questions  than  his.  The  tyros  in  the- 
ology have  ever  felt  it  their  first  duty  to  demolish  the  philosoph- 
ical arguments  of  Hume,  and  have  butted  up  against  them  in 
ttieir  callow  freshness  with  a  self-confidence  at  once  ludicrous 
and  pitiable.  But  after  they  have  learned  to  realize  that  the  walls 
of  Hume  cannot,  like  those  of  the  fabled  Jericho,  be  blown  down 
with  ram's  horns,  they  have  generally  settled  down  to  ever  after 
either  ignore  Hume's  arguments  or  "  getting  satisfaction  "  by  de- 
nouncing him  as  an  "  infidel, "  which,  in  theological  argumenta- 
tion, is  considered  invulnerable  and  conclusive,  as  well  as  log- 
ically legitimate.  But  one  great  argument  of  Hume  has  ever 
shone  out  over  all  the  counter  arguments  and  denunciations  of 
the  prejudiced  theologians,  like  the  genial  sun  on  a  May  day, 
and  that  is  that  Hume  lived  a  blameless  life  was  a  character 
unimpeachable  and  an  actor  on  the  stage  of  life  whose  conduct 
was  truer  to  the  highest  moral  ideals  than  that  of  his  opponents 
and  the  great  mass  of  mankind  in  general. 

Hume's  doctrines  of  ethics  as  a  philosophy  are  set  out  in  his 
work  entitled  An  Inquiry  Concerning  the  Principles  of  Morals.  The 
very  title  of  this  work  is  attractive  to  the  thinker — not  a  dogmatic 
statement  of  moral  doctrines,  but  an  "  inquiry  concerning  "  the 
nature  of  moral  principles. 

Hume  divides  his  work  into  eight  main  sections,  as  follows  : 
1 ,  Introductory — on  General  Principles  of  Morals ;  2,  Benevo- 
lence ;    3,   Justice;    4,    Political    Society — government;     5,    Why 


54  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

Utility  Pleases;  6,  Qualities  Useful  to  Ourselves;  7,  Qualities 
Immediately  Agreeable  to  Ourselves ;  8,  Qualities  Immediately 
Agreeable  to  Others.  The  reading  of  these  mere  headmgs  shows 
one  that  Hume's  philosophy  of  ethics  was  decidedly  of  the  util- 
itarian type,  and  that  he  does  not  take  into  account  any  moral 
relationship  of  man  to  any  other  beings  or  plane  of  existence  than 
man  and  his  fellows  now  and  here  on  earth.  Following  these 
eight  sections  of  his  main  treatise  is  the  9th — the  Conclusion, 
and  to  these  he  attaches  an  Appendix  of  four  more  sections,  in 
which  he  more  completely  elucidates  his  ideas  and  rounds  out 
his  discussion. 

In  his  introductory  section,  the  author  first  of  all  repudiates  as 
useless  effort  trying  to  controvert  the  sophistries  of  those  who 
disingenuously  dispute  the  reality  of  a  distinction  between  right 
and  wrong,  and  proceeds  to  state  the  important  question  of  ethics 
to  be,  Is  the  foundation  of  morals  reason  or  sentiment  ?  That  is, 
is  our  knowledge  of  moral  distinctions — of  right  from  wrong — 
obtained  by  a  chain  of  reasoning  and  deduction,  or  by  a  direct 
feeling,  or  specific  moral  sense  ?  And,  after  clearly  discussing 
the  specious  arguments  in  favor  of  both  propositions,  he  logically 
concludes  that  "  the  arguments  on  both  sides  have  so  much  force 
in  them,  that  we  may  reasonably  suspect  [putting  it  modestly  as 
becomes  an  "inquirer"]  that  reason  and  sentiment  both  concur  in 
our  moral  determinations."  He  thinks  that  a  "  process  of  the 
understanding  "  a  chain  of  reasoning — may  be  necessary  to  ar- 
rive at  nice  distinctions  of  right  and  wrong,  in  ascertaining  mat- 
ters of  fact  and  ferreting  out  complicated  relations,  while  the  final 
conclusion  may  come  directly  from  the  influence  of  the  feelings, 
which,  of  course,  has  been  determined  by  the  evidence  obtained 
by  the  acts  of  reasoning.  Hume  here,  however,  does  not  carry 
this  discussion  to  the  point  of  deciding  between  these  two  prin- 
ciples as  abstract  subjects,  but  pursues  what  he  considers  a  sim- 
pler and  more  concrete  method  the  method  of  the  physical  sci- 
entists, the  experimental  method,  and  "drawing  general  maxims 
from  particular  instances  " — the  inductive  method.  And  he,  ac- 
cordingly proceeds  to  analyze  those  qualities  of  mentality  usually 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  55 

called  personal  merit — that  is  character  and  conduct :  "  to  ascertain 
the  attributes  or  qualities  that  render  a  man  an  object  of  esteem 
and  affection,  or  of  hatred  and  contempt — a  question  of  fact  and 
not  of  abstract  science. ' 

Section  2,  in  which  Benevolence  is  treated  upon,  is  introduced 
•with  the  statement  that  benevolence  "  is  identified  in  all  countries 
with  the  highest  merits  that,  human  nature  is  capable  of  attain- 
ing to. "  And  the  characteristic  by  which  mankind  recognizes 
this  virtue  is  the  "  happiness  to  society  arising  through  "  its  good 
offices ;  that  is,  the  happiness  of  others  as  members  of  society. 
He  herein  does  not  insist  upon  utility  as  being  the  sole  and  whole 
measure  of  benevolence,  but  intimates  that  "  it  forms  at  least  a 
part"  of  its  merits. 

In  treating  of  Justice,  Hume  assumes  that  it  would  be  super- 
fluous to  prove  that  justice  derives  at  least  a  part  of  its  merit  from 
its  usefulness  to  society ;  but  he  also  thinks  that  though  it  may 
seem  questionable — a  debatable  question — that  public  utility  is 
the  sole  origin  and  foundation  of  its  merits,  it  can  be  maintained 
by  abundant  evidence.  He  maintains  that  in  an  ideal  community 
where  "  the  mind  of  every  man  were  so  enlarged  and  so  replete 
with  generosity  that  each  should  feel  as  much  for  his  fellows  as 
for  himself,  justice  would  be  in  abeyance,  and  its  ends  answered 
by  benevolence."  The  mistake  of  the  Communists  and  Socialists 
is  right  here,  in  that  they  assume  this  ideal  to  be  the  actual  and 
factual  at  present,  or  at  least  that  it  is  about  to  become  so.  Hume 
admits  that  this  ideal  is  well-nigh  attained  and  realized  in  well- 
cultivated  families.  He  also  maintains  that  justice  is  sometimes 
rightly  set  in  abeyance  by  other  virtues,  as,  for  instance  the  acts 
of  self-preservation  of  the  individual  against  a  criminal  assault, 
or  of  civilized  society  or  government  in  war  against  the  assaults 
of  barbarous  people.  He  illustrates  this  by  supposing  the  case 
of  a  virtuous  man  who  "  falls  into  the  society  of  ruffians  on  the 
road  to  swift  destruction ;  his  sense  of  justice  would  be  of  no 
avail,  and  consequently  he  would  arm  himself  with  the  first 
weapon  he  could  seize,  consulting  self-preservation  alone.  And 
further,  he  says  that  "  the  ordinary  punishments  of  criminals  is. 


56  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

as  regards  them,  a  suspension  of  justice  for  the  benefit  of  society. 
A  state  of  war  is  the  remission  of  justice  between  the  parties  as 
of  no  use  or  application.  A  civilized  nation  at  war  with  barba- 
rians must  discard  even  the  relics  of  justice  retained  in  war  with 
other  civilized  nations."  And  he  concludes  from  this  that  "  the 
rules  of  equity  and  justice  depend  on  the  conditions  that  men  are 
placed  in,  and  are  limited  by  their  utilify  in  each  separate  state  of 
things."  It  is  apparent,  1  think,  that  Hume's  position  here  is  cor- 
rect only  upon  a  definition  of  justice  somewhat  different  from 
that  of  common  acceptation.  As  generally  conceived  of,  1  think, 
justice  is  not  put  in  abeyance  or  discarded  "as  of  no  avail"  in 
case  of  violent  acts  for  self-preservation  of  the  individual,  or  of 
society  in  its  punishment  of  its  criminal  members,  or  of  civilized 
peoples  in  war  against  unjust  assaults  of  barbarians,  but  these 
acts  are  themselves  acts  of  justice,  as  related  to  the  unjustly  as- 
saulted individual  or  nation.  Here,  as  everywhere  else,  very 
much  depends  upon  the  point  of  view  and  the  intepretation  we 
give  to  our  language.  Vengeance  is  not  justice,  but  self  preser- 
vation is  "  the  first  law  of  nature,"  and  justice  itself  being  a  "  law 
of  nature"  cannot  be  set  at  naught  by  the  former.  Justice,  being 
measured  by  utility,  and  the  utility  being  the  preservation  of  one's 
own  life  or  possessions,  or  the  life  or  possessions  of  society,  those 
acts  which  are  necessary  thereto  must  of  necessity  be  acts  of 
justice.  * 

Hume  concludes  that  "  by  an  inductive  determination  on  the 
strict  Newtonian  basis, "  says  Bain,  "  he  has  proved  that  the  sole 
foundation  of  our  regard  to  justice  is  the  support  and  welfare  of 
society. "  This  conclusion,  1  think,  surely  confirms  my  foregoing 
remark  that  justice  is  not  set  aside  in  acts  against  criminal  as- 
saults by  the  individual  or  society  for  its  self-preservation. 

In  Hume's  fourth  section  he  aims  to  show  that  "  government 
allegiance  and  the  laws  of  State,  are  justified  solely  by  utility."    He 


*  This  is  well  illustrated  in  the  following  anecdote  :  An  Irishman  had 
killed  a  man.  and  when  he  consulted  an  attorney  for  his  defence,  the 
lawyer  remarked  :  '"  1  will  do  my  best  to  have  justice  done  you.  Pat." 
Pat  replied  :  "  But  that  be  jabers,  is  just  what  I  don't  want! " 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  57 

says  that  "  the  laws  of  good  manners  are  a  kind  of  lesser  morality, 
for  the  better  securing  of  our  pleasures  in  society."  After  stating 
that  even  robbers  and  thieves  when  banded  together  have  laws ; 
the  contests  of  boxers,  wrestlers,  etc.,  have  their  rules  (laws),  and 
even  war  as  well  as  peace  has  its  laws,  he  concludes  that  "  for  all 
such  cases,  the  common  interest  and  utility  begets  a  standard  of 
right  and  wrong  in  those  concerned."  And  is  not  this  true  of 
all  cases  ? 

In  section  five  of  his  work,  Hume  proceeds  to  inquire  ivhy 
utility  pleases  ?  And  he  answers  that  there  can  be  but  "  two  nat- 
ural sentiments  that  utility  can  appeal  to,  self-interest,  and  gen- 
erosity or  the  interests  of  others. 

1  cannot  agree  with  Prof.  Bain  in  his  remark  that  Hume  founds 
the  chief  part  of  our  sentiment  of  moral  approbation  upon  a 
"  principle  of  disinterested  action."  Hume  shows  that  we  are 
interested  in  that  "  the  very  aspect  of  happiness,  joy,  prosperity, 
gives  pleasure,  while  pain,  suffering,  sorrow  communicate  un- 
easiness." And  that  "  here  we  have  an  unmistakable,  powerful, 
universal  sentiment  of  human  nature  to  build  upon.'  This  sen- 
timent of  sympathy  implies  self-interest,  in  that  we  rejoice  with  the 
joy  of  others  and  sorrow  with  their  sorrows,  which  is  one  of  the 
strongest  evidences  of  the  solidarity  of  humanity  and  of  the  fact 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  purely  disinterested  action. 

In  section  six  the  author  discusses  qualities  useful  to  ourselves. 
And  the  same  mistake  is  made  here  in  considering  that  there  can 
be  no  selfish  motive  in  our  being  pleased  with  the  acts  of  others 
which  bring  to  them  happiness — acts  useful  to  themselves  only. 
For  here  also  the  law  of  sympathy  holds  sway.  We  approve  of 
the  acts  of  others  that  are  apparently  useful  to  them  alone,  if  not 
injurious  to  ourselves,  because  of  our  unity  of  feeling  which  af- 
fords us  pleasure,  which  proves  that  those  acts  of  others  apparently 
of  utility  to  them  alone  are  in  reality  useful  to  ourselves  also. 
Therefore  we  are  interested  in  an  apparently  disinterested  man- 
ner. Were  individuals  strictly  and  absolutely  individuals,  this 
sentiment  would  have  no  foundation  and  no  existence;  and  no 
real  or  apparent  disinterested  pleasure  would  ever  be  produced 


38  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

by  acts  of  others  for  their  individual  good,  h  is  the  solidarity  of 
the  race,  the  unity  of  the  individuals  which  affords  a  community 
of  pleasures  as  well  as  of  interests.  This  is  the  very  foundation 
and  meaning  of  sympathy.  Hume  further  illustrates  this  interested 
feeling  by  reference  to  those  aroused  in  us  by  the  spectacle  of  a 
wise  man  or  of  a  fool,  of  one  well-to-do,  or  of  a  beggar,  etc. 
Even  our  pleasure  in  the  contemplation  of  animals  arises  from 
our  sympathy  as  aroused  by  the  suitability  of  their  structure, 
color,  etc.,  to  their  environment  and  manner  of  life.  In  the  next 
section  Hume  really  continues  the  former  discussion  as  extended 
to  the  consideration  of  qualities  immediatelv  agreeable  to  ourselves. 
And  here  Bain  acknowledges  that  these  qualities  as  cheerful- 
ness, courage,  dignity  of  mind  or  character ;  equanimity  of  mind 
in  the  midst  of  adversity  and  misery,  etc. — "  are  further  testi- 
monies to  the  existence  of  social  sympathy,  and  to  the  connection 
of  that  with  our  sentiment  of  approbation  towards  actions  of  per- 
sons." That  is,  that  we  are  interested  when  we  are  apparently  dis- 
interested. 

In  section  eight  Hume  extends  his  discussion  to  qualities  im- 
mediately agreeable  to  others,  as  good  manners,  the  wit  or  in- 
genuity that  enlivens  (or  renders  enjoyable)  conversation,  modesty, 
cleanliness,  grace  of  manner,  etc.,  which  I  can  no  more  than  call 
attention  to  here  as  being  in  line  with  the  foregoing  remarks 
upon  the  two  preceding  sections. 

In  section  nine  the  author  sets  out  in  full  his  conclusions, 
which,  1  assume,  have  been  pretty  well  foreshadowed  in  the  fore- 
going synopsis  of  his  preceding  chapters.  1  will  now  repeat, 
however,  his  teaching  here  more  explicitly  that  "  humanity  [that 
is,  sympathy]  and  love  of  reputation  combine  to  form  the  highest 
type  of  morality  yet  conceived."  And  then  in  the  first  discus- 
sion in  his  Appendix,  he  continues  the  consideration  of  the 
question  propounded  in  the  first  part  of  his  work,  but  not  then 
fully  determined,  as  to  how  far  reason  and  how  far  sentiment 
constitute  our  grounds  for  our  moral  approbations  or  disappro- 
bations. As  Bain  remarks,  "  His  handling  of  this  topic  is  lumi- 
nous and   decisive."      His  conclusion   is  here  added  to  and  well 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  59 

set  out  by  the  statement  that  "reason  is  insufficient  of  itself  to 
constitute  the  feeling  of  moral  approbation  or  disapprobation. 
Reason  shows  the  means  to  an  end  ;  but  if  we  are  otherwise  in- 
different to  the  end,  the  reasonings  fall  inoperative  on  the  mind. 
Here  then  a  sentiment  must  display  itself  a  delight  in  the  happi- 
ness of  men  and  a  repugnance  to  what  causes  them  misery. 
Reason  teaches  the  consequences  of  actions ;  humanity  or  be- 
nevolence is  roused  to  make  a  distinction  in  favor  of  such  as 
are  beneficial." 

in  the  Appendix,  the  second  discussion  is  of  self-love.  Hume, 
to  begin,  rejects  indignantly  the  position  assumed  by  some  ethical 
writers  that  "  benevolence  is  a  mere  pretence,  a  cheat,  a  gloss  of 
self-love,"  and  proceeds  to  consider  the  view  that  benevolence 
is  "  resolvable  in  the  last  resort  into  self-love."  He  brings  several 
arguments  against  this  position  ;  such  as,  first,  that  "  the  selfish 
passions  and  the  benevolent  passions  are  widely  distinguished, 
and  no  hypothesis  has  ever  yet  so  far  overcome  the  disparity  as 
to  show  that  the  one  could  grow  out  of  the  other ; '  and  again, 
that  "  the  animals  are  susceptible  of  kindness  ;  shall  we  then  at- 
tribute to  them,  too,  a  refinement  of  self-interest?"  And  again, 
"  what  interest  can  a  fond  mother  have  in  view  who  loses  her 
health  m  attendance  on  a  sick  child,  and  languishes  and  dies  of 
grief  when  relieved  from  the  slavery  of  that  attendance?"  His 
second  line  of  argument  by  comparison  with  other  passions  is 
not  so  convincing  and  1  will  pass  them  over  as  not  pertinent. 

It  appears  that  much  of  this  difference  between  ethicists  de- 
pends, as  in  many  other  cases,  upon  the  difference  of  ideas  at- 
tached to  the  same  words,  or  difference  of  words  attached  to  the 
same  idea.  "  Self-love  "  is  not  a  true  representative,  1  take  it,  of 
the  idea  that  is  held  to  by  those  who  deny  disinterested  benevo- 
lence. As  1  understand  them,  they  mean,  rather,  self-gratification 
— unconscious  self-gratification.  The  mother  above  referred  to 
affords  an  argument  for  this  instead  of  against  it.  Does  not  the 
fact  that  the  mother  "  languishes  and  dies  of  grief  when  relieved 
from  the  slavery  of  that  attendance  '  show  that  she  had  been 
sustained  and  comforted  by  it  while  it  lasted  ?     The  very  efforts 


60  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

of  giving  care  to  the  sick  child  afforded  her  pleasure — self-gratifi- 
cation. Her  motherly  instinct  was  to  a  degree  gratified  by  her 
motherly  acts  of  kindness.  Who  that  has  attended  up>on  the  sick 
and  unfortunate  will  not  say  that  their  own  kindly  acts  gave  them 
great  satisfaction  ?  And  what  is  satisfaction  but  gratification  of 
an  individual  desire  ?  Show  me  the  man  or  woman  who  takes 
no  pleasure — gets  no  gratification  -from  bestowing  kindness  upon 
another  in  need,  and  1  will  show  you  one  who  does  not  do  so  — 
who  is  not  benevolent.  Nevertheless,  this  does  not  detract  from 
the  value  of  benevolence  or  from  the  honor  or  approbation  due 
the  benevolent  man.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  acts  at  the  time  un- 
conscious— unreflectively — of  the  good  he  is  receiving  for  the 
good  he  is  bestowing.  He  acts  as  if  he  were  disinterested — as  if 
his  motives  were  purely  altruistic.  Hume  was  probably  right  in 
his  opposition  to  the  theory  that  benevolent  acts  were  prompted 
by  self-lo\>e — in  a  premeditated  plan  to  gain  something  equal  or 
greater  in  value  than  is  bestowed.  But  the  language  and  the 
ideas  are  not  properly  correlated,  and  in  other  words  he  would 
probably  have  conceded  that  benevolent  acts  were  all  prompted 
by  unconscious  (or  sui-conscious)  desire,  for  the  gratification  of 
that  desire  which  nature  has  given  especially  to  gregarious  ani- 
mals and  men,  and  to  all  parents,  especially  mothers,  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  leading  them  to  do  things  for  the  preservation 
of  the  species  or  the  race. 

Very  briefly  summed  up,  Hunne's  system  of  ethics  is  this : 

1.  The  standard  of  right  and  wrong  is  utility — the  common- 
weal of  the  community  or  the  race. 

2.  The  moral  faculty  is  a  co-operation  of  reason  wnth  humane 
sentiment.  (He  persistently  upholds  the  hypothesis  of  "  disin- 
terested sentiment,"  but  does  not  carry  it  to  the  extent  of  affirm- 
ing that  it  ever  leads  to  entirely  uncompensated  effort  to  the  de- 
gree of  self-sacrifice.  And  this  is,  1  think,  a  virtual  surrender  of 
the  question  at  issue.) 

3.  free  will  is  not  taken  into  account  as  determining  acts  of 
right  and  wrong. 

4.  "  He  recognizes  no  relationship  between  ethics  and  theology" 


THE  ORIGIN   AND  EVOLUTION  OF  ETHICS  6! 

(Bain),   and   considers   the  reason  looking  to  utility  as  determin- 
ing the  sentiment  which  directly  moves  to  moral  action. 

5.  No  new  moral  code  is  proposed. 

6.  Happiness  is  not  directly  treated  upon  as  the  end,  but  his 
ideas  are  that  simplicify  is  the  basis  of  the  greatest  happiness — 
the  "simple  life"  versus  luxury. 

ADAM    SMITH. 

The  Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments  is  the  title  of  a  most  extensive 
and  able  elaboration  by  Adam  Smith,  who  was  born  in  I  723 
and  died  in  1  790.  The  work  is  divided  into  Parts,  which  are 
subdivided  into  Sections,  each  of  which  is  made  up  of  Chapters. 
Only  a  bare  outline  of  this  work  can  be  given  here,  but  it  will 
give  a  clear  idea  of  his  system. 

Part  1.  Of  the  Propriety  of  Action :  Sec.  1 ,  Sense  of  propriety ; 
Sec.  2,  Degrees  of  the  different  passions  which  are  consistent  with 
propriety  ;  Sec.  3,  Effects  of  prosperity  and  adversity  upon  the 
judgment  of  mankind  regarding  propriety  of  action. 

Part  11.  Of  Merit  and  Demerit:  Sec.  I,  The  sense  of  merit 
and  demerit;  Sec.  2,  Justice  and  beneficence;  Sec.  3,  Influence 
of  fortune  upon  the  sentiments  of  mankind  with  regard  to  the 
merit  and  the  demerit  of  actions. 

Part  111.  Of  the  Foundation  of  our  Judgments  concerning  our 
own  Sentiments  and  Conduct,  and  of  the  Sense  of  Duty :  Chap- 
ter I ,  Principle  of  self-approbation  and  self-disapprobation ;  Ch. 
2,  Love  of  praise  and  praiseworthiness,  and  dread  of  blame  and 
blameworthiness  ;  Ch.  3,  Influence  and  authority  of  conscience  ; 
Chs.  4  and  5,  Self-deceit  and  the  origin  and  use  of  general  rules ; 
Ch.  6,  Sense  of  duty  a  motive  of  conduct. 

Part  IV.  Of  the  Effect  of  Utility  upon  the  Sentiment  of  Ap- 
probation :  Ch.  1 ,  Beauty  arising  from  utility ;  Ch,  2,  Connection 
of  utility  with  moral  approbation. 

Part  V.     Influence  of  Custom  on  the  Moral  Sentiments. 

Part  VI.  The  Character  of  Virtue  :  Sec.  1 ,  Prudence  ;  Sec.  2, 
Character  as  affecting  other  people;  Sec.  3,  Self-command. 

Part  Vll.     Of  Systems  of  Moral  Philosophy. 


62  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

A  very  brief  summary  of  Adam  Smith's  ethical  system  is 
given  as  follows : 

1 .  The  ethical  standard,  the  judgment  of  an  impartial  observer 
or  critic,  the  actor's  own  decisions  being  based  upon  what  such 
an  observer  would  approve  or  disapprove. 

2.  The  moral  Faculty  is  identical  with  that  of  Sympathy,  which 
is  the  foundation  of  benevolence. 

3.  Happiness  depends  chiefly  upon  contentment  and  tranquility. 

4.  Freedom  of  the  will,  relation  of  morality  with  politics  and 
the  moral  code  as  to  inducements  to  right  conduct  are  not  treated 
of  at  all,  or  not  in  any  special  manner.  His  ideas  regarding  dis- 
interested conduct  are  not  clearly  expressed. 

5.  Ethics  and  religion  he  considers  as  allied,  but  does  not  in- 
sist that  the  religious  sanction  should  be  referred  to  on  all  occa- 
sions. "  He  assumes  a  benevolent  and  all-wise  Governor  of  the 
world,  who  will  ultimately  redress  all  inequalities  and  remedy  all 
outstanding  injustice."  (Bain).  Smith  ignores  a  divine  revelation 
and  thinks  we  are  to  infer  solely  from  the  principles  of  benefi- 
cence what  this  supreme  Governor  would  approve  or  disapprove 
in  our  conduct.  Our  relation  to  this  deity  is  simply  that  we 
show  our  regard  for  him  by  just  and  beneficent  acts  toward  our 
fellow  men,  and  "  not  by  frivolous  observances,  sacrifices,  cere- 
monies and  vain  supplications. " 

Prof.  Bain  justly  remarks,  "  In  Smith's  Essay,  the  purely  scien- 
tific enquiry  is  overlaid  by  practical  and  hortatory  dissertations, 
and  by  eloquent  delineations  of  character  and  of  beau-ideals  of 
virtuous  conduct. " 

DAVID    HARTLEY. 

A  work  entitled  Observations  on  Man  by  David  Hartley  was 
published  in  1  749,  which  was  something  of  an  innovation  in  the 
field  of  ethical  discussion.  The  author  is  said  to  be  the  first  to 
undertake  a  systematic  explanation  of  mental  phenomena  by  the 
law  of  association,  and  in  doing  this,  he  adopts  the  hypothesis 
that  "  mental  states  are  produced  by  the  vibration  of  infinitesimal 
particles  of  the  nerves  "a  somewhat  crude  materialistic  expla- 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  63 

nation.  This  hypothesis  is  a  mere  extension  of  the  undulation 
theory  of  the  hypothetical  substance  ether  of  the  physicists  from 
inanimate  to  animate  nature.  In  treating  of  morals,  Hartley  con- 
fines his  remarks  almost  entirely  to  the  psychology  of  ethics. 
He  tries  to  defend  the  doctrine  of  disinterestedness,  but  like 
others  who  have  done  so,  did  not,  apparently,  go  back  to  the  last 
analysis.  He  treated  of  sympathy  at  length,  and  showed  that  all 
our  feelings  of  pleasure  and  displeasure  with  the  acts  of  others 
originate  in  association.  But  he  failed  to  see  that  this  very 
"association"  was  the  organic  link  that  constitutes  society  or  the 
race  a  solidarity — a  complex  unity  which  enjoys  and  suffers  as 
an  individual,  just  as  the  personal  individual  as  a  complex  unity 
of  billions  of  organic  cells  experiences  pleasures  and  pains  as 
an  individual. 

Hartley  denied  that  benevolence  was  a  primitive  function  or 
"  feeling,"  but  maintained  that  it  grows  out  of  the  circumstances 
of  our  pleasures  being  caused  by  others,  independently  of  the 
usefulness  of  those  others  to  us.  But  he  here  overlooks  the  fact 
that  their  thus  rendering  pleasure  is  "  usefulness  to  us."  He  also 
lays  stress  upon  the  principle  that  teaching  one  to  "  put  on  the 
appearance  of  good  will,  and  to  do  kindly  actions,"  may  beget  in 
him  the  disposition  to  perform  benevolent  deeds  in  a  disinterested 
manner — a  force  of  habit  developed  into  an  organic  function,  as 
it  were.  While  it  may  be  admitted  that  such  discipline  effects 
such  a  development  as  results  in  an  improvement  of  the  benev- 
olent disposition,  it  may  be  said  with  truth,  1  think,  that  the  sub- 
conscious feeling  of  associated  interest  is  present,  and  therefore 
the  person  does  not  reall'^,  though  apparently,  act  from  disinter- 
ested motives.  Under  the  head  of  Compassion  he  makes  similar 
remarks  upon  the  rise  of  apparent  disinterested  sympathy  and 
consequent  suffering  with  the  sufferings  of  our  associates ;  the 
same  objections  may  be  made  to  this  explanation  as  to  that  im- 
mediately preceding. 

Of  the  moral  senses.  Hartley  does  not  accept  the  doctrine  of 
the  existence  of  an  organic  moral  instinct  by  which  we  indepen- 
dently judge  of  the  rectitude  of  acts  or  conduct.     Yet  he  insists 


64  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

that  our  moral  approbation  or  disapprobation  is  disinterested 
and  "  has  a  factitious  independence,"  though  arising  from  asso- 
ciation. Unlike  Hobbes,  he  considers  "  self-love, "  or  rather  self- 
interest,  the  remote  and  not  the  immediate  cause  of  conscience. 

DUGALD   STEWART. 

This  writer,  who  lived  from  1753  to  1828,  was  the  author  of 
a  work  entitled  Essays  on  the  jidive  Powers  of  the  Mind,  in  which 
the  chief  point  of  interest,  perhaps,  is  his  endorsement  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  existence  of  an  innate  moral  faculty — an  instinct- 
ive sense  of  right  and  wrong  independent  of  reason,  sympathy, 
association  or  self-interest.  This  is  set  out  chiefly  in  his  second 
chapter  in  which  his  aim  is  to  show  that  "  the  moral  faculty  is 
an  original  principle  of  the  mind."  In  his  third  and  fourth  chap- 
ters he  tries  to  reply  to  objections  to  the  theory  of  an  innate 
moral  sense.  In  his  fifth  chapter  he  uses  the  phrase  "  analysis 
of  our  moral  perceptions  and  emotions,"  of  which  Bain  justly  re- 
marks it  "  is  a  somewhat  singular  phrase  in  an  author  recognizing 
a  separate  inborn  faculty  of  right."  In  his  sixth  chapter,  Stewart 
sets  out  and  endorses  Butler's  "  supremacy  of  conscience  "  doc- 
trine under  the  heading,  "  Moral  Supremacy  " ;  but  he  goes  fur- 
ther than  Butler  in  that  he  insists  that  this  obligation  is  wholly 
independent  of  the  command  of  God.  And  in  relation  to  re- 
ward and  punishment  in  a  future  state  of  existence,  he  makes 
some  very  pertinent  remarks,  of  which  I  will  quote  this  : 

"  In  the  last  place,  if  moral  obligation  be  constituted  by  a  regard  to 
our  situation  in  another  life,  how  shall  the  existence  of  a  future  state  be 
proved,  or  even  rendered  probable  by  the  light  of  nature?  or  how  shall 
we  discover  what  conduct  is  acceptable  to  the  Deity  ?  The  truth  is,  that 
the  strongest  presumption  for  such  a  state  is  deduced  from  our  natural 
notions  of  right  and  wrong ;  of  merit  and  demerit ;  and  from  a  compar- 
ison between  these  and  the  general  course  of  human  affairs." 

In  the  first  chapter  of  Book  iv  of  his  work,  Stewart  re-enters 
upon  the  discussion  of  benevolence  and  utility  and  argues  against 
the  ethical  systems  that  have  been  founded  on  them  ;  but,  as  Bain 
says,  "merely  repeats  the  common-place  objections."  On  the 
relation  of  morality  to  religion,  Stewart  was  positive  in  his  oppo- 


-y^ 


Of   THE 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  65 

sition   to  their  identity  or  the  dependence  of  the  former  upon  the 
latter,  or  upon  the  will  of  God. 

In  Book  iii,  he  discusses  extensively  "  natural  religion,"  but 
does  not  take  into  account  either  the  Bible  or  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, taking  a  position  in  this  respect  the  same  as  that  of  Adam 
Smith.  While  he  thinks  we  may  assume  that  the  Deity  is  benev- 
olent, "  to  affirm  it  positively  is  to  go  beyond  our  depth." 

WILLIAM    PALEY. 

This  writer  (1  743-1805)  produced  a  work  on  Moral  and  Politi- 
cal Philosophy  which  contains  his  ethical  system  fully  set  forth. 
The  work  is  divided  into  six  Books,  the  first  of  which,  entitled 
"  Preliminary  Considerations,"  is  a  sort  of  compilation  of  miscel- 
laneous discussions  of  his  own  upon  various  basic  principles  of 
the  general  subject.  In  the  second  Book  his  ideas  are  more  sys- 
tematically and  fully  set  out. 

He  opens  up  his  discussion  in  Book  1  by  defining  moral 
philosophy  thus :  "  That  science  which  teaches  men  their  duty, 
and  the  reasons  for  it  "- -certainK' a  very  inexact  definition.  He 
lays  down  the  fundamental  proposition  that  the  ordinary  rules  of 
moral  conduct  are  of  themselves  defective  and  liable  to  lead  one 
into  wrong  doing  instead  of  the  right  unless  they  are  supple- 
mented or  supported  "by  scientific  investigation,"  and  what  he 
means  by  the  "ordinary  rules,"  he  classifies,  crudely,  as  "  the  law 
of  honor,  the  law  of  the  land,  and  the  scriptures."  And  the 
crudeness  of  the  classification  is  added  to  by  his  very  narrow 
limitation  of  the  " law  of  honor"  to  people  of  "  rank  and  fashion  " ! 
He  says  the  law  of  the  land  must  necessarily  "omit  many  duties, 
properly  compulsory,  as  piety,  benevolence,"  etc.,  and  also  "  leave 
unpunished  many  vices,  as  luxury,  prodigality,  partiality."  He 
says  the  Scriptures  (Hebrew  and  Christian)  "  lay  down  general 
rules  which  have  to  be  applied  by  the  exercise  of  reason  and 
judgment.  Moreover  they  pre-suppose  the  principles  of  natural 
justice,  and  supply  new  sanctions  and  greater  certainty.  Accord- 
ingly, /Aey  do  not  dispense  with  a  scientific  view  of  morals."  (Bain.) 

Next,   he  discusses  elaborately  the  moral  sense — the  principle 


66  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLLTION    OF    ETHICS 

question  of  the  existence  of  an  innate  faculty  of  discernment  of 
right  and  wrong  as  such.  He  states  the  arguments  on  both  sides 
of  the  question,  giving,  first,  those  for  an  innate  moral  sense  as 
— "  that  we  approve  examples  of  generosity,  gratitude,  fidelity, 
etc.,  on  the  instant,  without  deliberation  and  without  being  con- 
scious of  any  assignable  reason  ;  and  that  this  approbation  is 
uniform  and  universal,  the  same  sort  of  conduct  being  approved 
or  disapproved  in  all  ages  and  countries  ;  which  circumstances 
point  to  the  operation  of  an  instinct,  or  a  moral  sense."  (Bain). 

He  replies  to  these  propositions  by  refusing  to  admit  as  a  fact 
the  uniformity  alleged,  and  citing  historians  and  travellers  as  au- 
thority, saying  that  there  is  scarcely  a  vice,  so  considered  by  one 
people  in  one  age  of  the  world,  but  has  been  approved  as  a  virtue 
by  the  public  opmion  of  some  other  people  or  age  of  the  world. 
And  he  cites  as  examples  the  killing  of  aged  parents,  theft,  sui- 
cide, sexual  promiscuity,  and  crimes  not  now  even  mentionable. 
And  even  now  the  public  opinion  is  divided  as  to  the  character 
of  many  acts,  as,  for  instance,  duelling,  forgiveness  of  personal 
injuries,  and  in  these  and  many  other  instances  the  approbation 
of  the  public  is  governed  by  the  fashion  and  institutions  of  the 
country  which  "  have  grown  out  of  local  conditions  or  the  arbi- 
trary authority  of  some  chieftain  or  the  caprice  of  the  multitude." 

And  even  to  the  claim  that  though  no  vice  is  or  has  been  uni- 
oersally  so  considered,  yet  many  have  been  generally  less  ap- 
proved than  others,  he  replies  that  when  through  experience  we 
learn  that  a  particular  line  of  conduct  is  beneficial  to  ourselves,  a 
feeling  or  sentiment  of  approbation  is  engendered  and  grows  into 
habit,  and  this  feeling  is  aroused  into  action  whenever  the  vir- 
tuous act  is  observed  or  spoken  of,  and  without  our  being  con- 
scious, at  the  time,  of  the  consequences — acting  from  mere  "force 
of  habit." 

Then  Paley  sets  out  his  positive  objections  to  the  doctrine  of 
an  innate  moral  faculty  or  instinct.  He  argues,  first,  that  moral 
rules  are  not  absolutely  and  uniformlly  applicable,  but  adapt 
themselves  to  the  conditions.  Telling  the  truth,  for  example,  is 
a  virtue,  but  in  dealing  with  a  deadly  enemy,  a  robber,  or  a  luna- 


THE   ORIGIN   AND    EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  67 

tic,  we  not  only  refrain  from  telling  the  truth  but  tell  that  which  is 
positively  untrue  ;  and  we  are  under  some  circumstances  released 
from  our  most  sincere  promises,  in  the  second  place,  he  says, 
the  instinct,  if  it  exist,  must  carry  with  it  "  the  idea  of  the  actions 
to  be  approved  or  disapproved,  but  that  we  are  not  born  with 
any  such  ideas."  And  he  concludes  that  "  on  the  whole,  either 
there  exist  no  moral  instincts,  or  they  are  undistinguishable  from 
prejudices  and  habits,  and  are  not  to  be  trusted  in  moral  reason- 
ings." He  shows  by  many  examples  that  the  self-interest  or 
"  convenience  of  the  parties  has  much  to  do  w^ith  the  rise  of  a 
moral  sentiment." 

In  treating  of  happiness,  Paley  first  sets  forth  what  happiness 
does  not  consist  in,  and  secondly,  what  happiness  does  consist  in. 

But  Paley's  definition  of  virtue  is  thoroughly  theological.  It  is 
this  :  "  The  doing  good  to  mankind  in  obedience  to  the  will  of 
God  and  for  the  sake  of  everlasting  happiness."  This,  on  the 
face  of  it,  is  a  most  faulty  definition  ;  but  in  following  up  Paley's 
treatment  of  the  subject,  we  find  that  he  does  not  mean  by  this 
language  exactly  what  it  seems  to  express  as  standing  alone. 
The  will  of  God,  he  explains,  co-incides  with  the  good  of  man- 
kind, and  we  are  to  judge  of  what  God's  will  is  by  the  results  of 
our  actions  toward  our  fellow  men.  This,  of  course,  reduces  the 
proposition  to  the  basis  of  utility  as  the  guide,  not  the  revealed 
will  of  a  superhuman  authority.  As  to  the  reward  of  "  everlast- 
ing" happiness,  1  cannot  see  that  his  position  is  anything  other 
than  a  mere  assumption.  We  are  guided  into  good  and  right 
conduct  toward  our  fellows  by  the  hope  of  attaining  happiness 
thereby,  not  knowing  that  it  will  be  unending  or  even  of  long 
duration — often  expecting  it  to  be  the  reverse. 

In  Book  II,  Paley  sets  out  more  methodically  a  full  exposition 
of  his  ideas  or  ethics  under  the  head  of  "  Moral  Obligation. " 

A  very  noticeable  feature  of  Paley's  theory  of  moral  motive  is 
that  it  must  be  "violent"  and  from  the  command  oi  another;  by 
authority  supplemented  by  impending  penalty  for  disobedience 
of  the  command.  He  illustrates  his  theory  by  saying  that  men 
would    not   obey    the  magistrate  if  it  were  not  that  rewards  de- 


68  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

pended  upon  their  obedience  and  punishments  upon  their  dis- 
obedience; and  he  adds  that  neither  would  men,  without  the 
same  reason,  do  what  is  right  or  obey  God. 

He  asks,  "  Why  am  1  obliged  to  keep  my  word  ?"  and  answers 
by  saying  that  he  does  so  because  urged  by  "  a  violent  motive," 
meaning  the  rewards  and  punishments  of  a  future  life,  resulting 
from  the  command  of  God.  Thus  it  is  seen  that  his  ethics  is 
based  upon  theology. 

Although  in  his  first  Book  Paley  set  out  and  seemed  to  advo- 
cate the  doctrine  that  virtue  leads  to  happiness  even  in  this  life, 
in  this  portion  of  his  work  he  recedes  from  that  position  as 
shown  in  the  following  quotation  : 

"They  who  would  establish  a  system  of  morality,  independent  of  a 
future  state,  must  look  out  for  some  other  idea  of  mora!  obligation,  un- 
less the^  can  shoVD  that  virtue  conducts  the  possessor  to  certain  happiness 
in  this  life,  or  to  a  much  greater  share  of  it  than  he  could  attain  by  a 
different  behavior." 

From  this  and  the  fact  that  he  adopted  the  doctrine  of  future- 
life  rewards  and  punishments  as  necessary  motives  to  rectitude 
of  conduct,  we  must  infer  that  he  did  not  think  it  could  be  shown 
that  virtue  leads  to  happiness  in  this  life. 

He  discusses  the  means  of  determining  the  "will  of  God," 
and  says  there  are  two  ways  of  doing  so.  First  by  accepting 
"  the  express  declarations  of  scripture,'  and  by  observation  of  the 
design  shown  in  the  world --that  is,  by  guidance  of  "the  light  of 
nature."  In  this  second  method,  he  says  that  as  "God  wills  and 
wishes  the  happiness  of  his  creatures,  *  *  *  the  method  of 
coming  at  his  will  concerning  any  action,  is  to  enquire  into  the 
tendency  of  that  action  to  promote  or  to  diminish  the  general 
happiness. "  But  this  method  is  the  humanitarian  method  of  de- 
termining right  from  wrong  conduct  regardless  of  any  "  com- 
mands of  God  "  or  anyone  else,  or  of  any  hopes  of  future-life  re- 
ward or  fear  of  future-life  punishment.  These  motives  seem  to 
be  superfluous. 

In  discussing  ulililv,  Paley  brings  out  one  true  principle  of  con- 
duct which  is  often  overlooked  or  not  clearly  seen.     That  is,  that 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  69 

certain  actions  may  be  useful  that  no  one  would  admit  were  right 
per  56,  and  that  this  is  explained  upon  the  distinction  between 
"  the  particular  and  the  general  consequences  of  actions,"  and  the 
necessity  of  enforcing  general  rules.  He  illustrates  this  by  citing 
the  case  of  an  assassin  killing  a  villain — the  act  may  do  immediate 
and  particular  good  to  society,  "  but  the  liberty  granted  to  indi- 
viduals to  kill  whoever  they  should  deem  injurious  to  society 
would  render  human  life  unsafe  and  induce  universal  terror. " 

The  other  Books  of  Paley's  work  are  devoted  to  human  duties 
— "  relative  duties,  duties  to  ourselves,  duties  toward  God  " — and 
ending  in  Book  vi  with  politics  and  political  economy,  forms  of 
government,  etc.,  not  necessary  to  discuss  here. 

THOMAS  BROWN. 

Thomas  Brown  (living  from  1778  to  1820)  discussed  ethics  in 
his  Lectures,  beginning  with  the  Seventy-third.  In  laying  his 
foundation  for  his  discussion  he  first  offers  some  criticisms  on 
the  various  terms  that  have  been  commonly  used  to  express  the 
fundamental  question  of  ethical  inquiry,  "  What  is  the  ground  of 
moral  approbation  and  disapprobation  ?"  Such  as  these  ques- 
tions :  "  What  is  it  that  constitutes  the  action  virtuous?"  "What 
constitutes  the  moral  obligation  to  perform  certain  actions  ? " 
"What  constitutes  the  merit  of  the  agent?"  And  he  concludes 
that  these  though  they  have  been  considered  distinct  are  es- 
sentially the  same  question ;  that  there  is  fundamentally  but 
one  emotion  involved  in  moral  decisions,  and  that  the  sense  of 
"  approbation  or  of  disapprobation  of  an  agent  acting  in  a  cer- 
tain way."  But  this  seems  to  me  to  be  a  begging  of  the  real 
question,  which  is,  in  one  way  of  expressing.  What  is  it  that  con- 
stitutes an  action  moral  or  immoral — that  excites  in  us  the  emo- 
tion of  approbation  or  disapprobation  ?  And  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  answ^er  is  variable  according  to  conditions  and  the  char- 
acter of  the  person  who  approves  or  disapproves  of  an  action. 
This  is  shown  by  the  facts  that  the  same  act  in  one  case  may  re- 
ceive the  approval  of  a  person  and  in  another  case,  his  disap- 
proval ;  and  one  person  may  approve  a  certain  act    and   another 


70  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

person  disapprove  the  very  same  act.  Hence  the  diversity  of 
ethical  opinions  and  of  ethical  systems  among  different  peoples 
at  different  times.  It  seems  to  me  that  we  approve  of  an  act 
because  of  its  consistency,  its  judiciousness,  its  appropriateness 
on  the  occasion,  its  agreement  with  what  we  consider  the  most 
beneficial  to  the  actor  or  others  affected  under  the  circumstances ; 
and  our  disapprobation,  of  course,  arises  from  the  reverse  of  this. 

But  let  us  see  what  Brown  has  to  say  further.  He  adds  to  his 
form  of  the  question,  that  approbation  is  "  a  simple  emotion  of 
the  mind,  of  which  no  further  explanation  can  be  given  than  that 
we  are  so  constituted."  This,  of  course,  is  an  endorsement  of 
the  innate  moral  sense  ideas,  and  he  concludes  that  "  our  feeling 
of  moral  excellence  is  not  the  mere  perception  of  different  actions, 
or  the  discovery  of  the  physical  good  that  these  may  produce  ;  it 
is  an  emotion  sui  generis  superadded  to  them. 

in  one  of  his  illustrations  of  his  theory.  Brown  inadvertently 
admits  the  truth  of  the  utilitarian  principle,  thus :  "  Where  good 
and  evil  results  are  so  blended  that  we  cannot  easily  assign  the 
preponderance,  different  men  may  form  different  conclusions," 
and  this  not  only  in  case  of  individuals,  but  of  whole  nations  — 
as  an  instance  of  the  latter,  is  cited  the  Spartan  law  permitting 
theft.  Brown  then  makes  the  mistake  of  supposing  that  those 
who  do  not  accept  the  doctrine  of  an  innate  moral  sense  do  be- 
lieve in  the  existence  of  an  innate  immoral  sense,  for  he  in  af- 
fected triumph  asks  "  whether  men  in  approving  [certain]  excep- 
tions to  morality,  approve  them  because  they  are  immoral  ?"  In 
considering  the  theory  of  utility,  he  admits  that  utility  unques- 
tionably bears  a  certain  relation  to  virtue,  but  that  "it  is  only  a 
small  portion  of  virtuous  actions  wherein  the  measure"  of  utility 
"  holds." 

Brown  admits  that  "  utility  arid  virtue  are  so  intimately  related 
that  there  is  perhaps  no  action  generally  felt  by  us  as  virtuous 
but  what  is  generally  beneficial ;  but  that  "  it  is  only  the  Divine 
Being  that  can  fully  master  this  relationship  or  so  prescribe  our 
duties  that  they  shall  ultimately  coincide  with  the  general  happi- 
ness," but  while  this  relation  may  in  part  be   "  discovered  by  re- 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  71 

fleeting  men,  it  never  enters  the  mind  of  the  unthinking  multi- 
tude." He  further  admits  that  "  the  good  of  the  world  at  large 
[humanity),  if  not  the  only  moral  object,  is  a  moral  object,  in  com- 
mon with  the  good  of  parents,  friends,"  etc. 

In  discussing  the  question  of  the  existence  of  disinterested  af- 
fections, Brown,  contending  strongly  in  the  affirmative,  as  Bain 
says,  "  mixes  the  two  sentiments  [of  disinterestedness  and  the 
moral  sense]  together  in  his  language,  a  thing  almost  inevitable, 
but  yet  inconsistent  with  the  advocacy  of  a  distinct  moral  senti- 
ment." He  classes  Paleys  ethical  theory  with  what  he  calls  the 
"selfish  systems,"  and  contends  hotly  against  its  two  leading  doc- 
trines, "  everlasting  happiness  as  the  motive  and  the  will  of  God 
as  the  rule."  But  Brown  objects  to  the  terms  "  moral  sense  "  or 
"  moral  ideas,"  as  meaning  an  innate  power  of  moral  approba- 
tion," but  not  if  these  terms  mean  "  merely  a  susceptibility,"  "  an 
emotion,  like  hope,  jealousy  or  resentment,  rising  up  on  the  pre- 
sentation of  a  certain  class  of  objects."  He  considers  the  phrase 
"moral  ideas,"  as  used  by  Hutcheson,  as  objectionable  on  the 
ground  that  "  the  moral  emotions  are  more  akin  to  love  and  hate 
than  to  perception  or  judgment." 

Brown's  classification  of  duties  places  his  system  along  with 
those  1  have  called  theological,  or  "  religious,"  for  it  stands  thus  : 
"  Duty  to  others,  to  God  and  to  ourselves." 

JEREMY  BENTHAM. 

yln  Introduclion  to  the  Principles  of  Morals  and  Legislation  is  the 
title  of  Bentham's  work  containing  his  ethical  system,  which  was 
first  published  in  1 789 ;  but  in  a  posthumous  work  entitled 
Deontologv  the  principles  of  his  system  were  further  treated  and 
in  more  detail,  especially  as  to  the  "  minor  morals  and  amiable 
virtues." 

Bentham  wrote  of  ethics  looking  to  government  or  legislation, 
and  he  considered  utility  as  the  final  standard  of  morals.  In  the 
first  chapter  of  his  original  work  he  treats  of  "  The  Principle  of 
Utility,"  and  starts  his  discussion  thus : 

"  Nature  has  placed  mankind  under  the  governance  of  two 
sovereign  masters,   pain  and  pleasure.      It    is    for   them    alone   to 


72  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

point  out  what  we  ought  to  do  as  well  as  to  determine  what  we 
shall  do.  On  the  one  hand,  the  standard  of  right  and  wrong,  on 
the  other,  the  chain  of  causes  and  effects,  are  fastened  to  their 
throne.  They  govern  us  in  all  we  do,  in  all  we  say,  in  all  we 
think  ;  every  effort  we  can  make  to  throw  off  our  subjection  will 
serve  but  to  demonstrate  and  confirm  it.  In  words  a  man  may 
pretend  to  abjure  their  empire,  but  in  realitj-  he  will  remain  sub- 
ject to  it  all  the  while.  The  principle  of  utilitv  recognizes  this  sub- 
jection, and  assumes  it  for  the  foundation  of  that  system,  the  ob- 
ject of  which  is  to  rear  the  fabric  of  felicity  by  the  hand  of  rea- 
son and  of  law." 

Bentham  here,  as  appears  to  me,  errs  in  one  particular  in  com- 
mon with  all  other  moral  philosophers  of  whose  writings  I  have 
any  knowledge ;  that  is,  in  making  no  distinction  between  the 
conscious  and  unconscious  objects  of  all  our  actions.  They,  gen- 
erally, however  much  they  differ  in  other  respects,  agree  that  our 
acts  are. steps  toward  the  attainment  of  pleasure  or  happiness  as 
their  ultimate  end.  Whereas,  1  think  a  careful  and  profound  anal- 
ysis of  moral  as  well  as  personal  conduct  shows  that  pleasure 
and  happiness  are  not  the  unconscious,  ultimate  end  of  single  acts 
or  general  conduct,  but  proximate  conscious  objects.  That  is, 
we  consciously  do  this  or  that  for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure  or 
happiness  that  we  expect  to  result  therefrom ;  but  nature,  as  that 
word  is  used  in  the  restricted  sense  for  our  so-called  involuntary 
activities,  has  a  more  remote  object  for  our  acts  and  conduct,  and 
that  is  the  preservation  and  reproduction  of  the  individual  and  the 
species.  This  is  the  real  ultimate  end  or  object  of  all  life-activity, 
whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  voluntary  or  involuntary,  and 
the  conscious  proximate  end  of  pleasure  or  happiness  is  only  a 
means  to  that  ultimate  end.  This  may  appear  clearer  when  we 
take  the  converse  of  it :  Pain  or  unhappiness  are  not  means 
for  securing  pleasure  or  happiness,  but  proximate  means  to  the 
ultimate  end  that  life  may  be  preserved  and  reproduced  strictly 
speaking,  preserved  or  continued,  reproduction  itself  being  only  a 
means  to  that  end.  So  that,  from  my  point  of  view,  while  pleas- 
ure and  pain,  or  happiness  and  misery  are  consciously  sought  or 
avoided  as  ends  of  conduct,  they  are  really  only  the  sugar-teats 
and  whips  of  Mother  Nature,  the  one  in  her  right  hand  the  other 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  73 

in  her  left.  By  the  one  she  lures  us  on  to  do  "  right, "  and  by 
the  other  deters  us  from  doing  "wrong;"  these  words  right  and 
wrong  being  the  names  of  the  two  paths  before  us,  the  first  lead- 
ing to  life,  the  other  to  death — of  the  individual  or  the  species. 
But  this  does  not  at  all  invalidate  the  theory  of  utility,  as  advo- 
cated by  Bentham  and  others,  but  confirms  it.  The  utility  of  the 
act  is  the  preservation  of  life,  however,  and  not,  ultimately  as  an 
end,  the  attainment  of  pleasure  or  happiness.  In  this  light,  then, 
the  summum  honum  is,  not  as  the  old  philosophers  taught,  many 
of  them,  happiness,  but  life.  And,  so  far  as  reason  is  able  as 
yet  to  peer  into  the  methods,  means  and  objects  of  nature,  the 
end  or  object  of  life  is  life. 

Bentham  considers  utility  as  "  the  tendency  of  actions  to  pro- 
mote the  hapiness,  and  to  prevent  the  misery,  of  the  party  under 
consideration,  which  party  is  usually  the  community  where  one's 
lot  is  cast.  Of  this  principle  no  proof  can  be  offered  ;  it  is  the 
final  axiom,  on  which  alone  we  can  found  all  arguments  of  a 
moral  kind."  But  in  this  statement  the  same  error  creeps  in,  for 
"  the  tendency  of  utility  to  promote  the  happiness  of  the  com- 
munity"  falls  short  of  the  ultimate.  The  "  community  "  itself  is 
not  an  ultimate  end,  but  a  means  to  an  end,  and  that  end  is  the 
preservation  of  life.  Animals  associate  in  flocks  and  herds  for 
self-defense,  as  well  as  in  pairs  of  male  and  female  for  reproduc- 
tion, as  means  to  the  end  that  life  may  be  continued. 

In  his  second  chapter  Bentham  discusses  the  "  principles  ad- 
verse to  utility,"  w^hich  he  considers  to  consist  of  tw^o  kinds,  as- 
ceticism, and  sympathy  and  antipathy  (liking  and  disliking). 
He  defines  asceticism  as  the  "  approval  of  an  action  according  to 
its  tendency  to  diminish  happiness,  or  obversely."  But  here 
again  an  insidious  error  slips  in.  The  view  is  too  short ;  we 
must  look  not  altogether  to  the  immediate  but  also  to  the  ulti- 
mate result  of  acts,  when  we  shall  see  that  even  asceticism  has 
for  its  end  ultimately  ( in  consciousness)  happiness.  The  ascetic 
looks  into  the  distant  future  as  holding  in  store  for  him  all  the 
more  happiness  as  a  reward  for  his  present  misery  or  deficiency. 
He  wades  across  a  deep  morass  to  reach  a    better   road  beyond  ; 


74  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

he  climbs  a  rugged  mountain  to  enjoy  a  magnificent  view  of  the 
landscape ;  he  scrambles  through  briars  and  thorns  to  reach  the 
smoothe,  open  meadow  beyond.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
asceticism  in  the  sense  of  choosing  pain  for  pain's  sake,  or  avoid- 
ing pleasure  as  an  evil  except  as  only  temporary  good  resulting 
in  ultimate  evil.  We  all  recognize  the  evil  of  the  pleasure  of  ex- 
cessive gratification  of  the  appetite  for  food,  for  we  know  that 
ultimately  the  result  is  disastrous  to  our  more  permanent  and 
profound  pleasure. 

Bentham  in  his  third  chapter  considers  the  "  four  sanctions  or 
sources  of  pain  and  pleasure  whereby  men  are  stimulated  to  act 
right — as  being  physical,  political,  moral  and  religious. " 

Of  the  "  religious  "  sanction  he  says  it  "  proceeds  from  the  im- 
mediate hand  of  a  superior  invisible  being,  either  in  the  present 
or  in  a  future  life. " 

Of  the  "  social "  motives  for  ethical  conduct  he  makes  four 
classes  :  Good-will,  which,  he  says,  "  taken  in  a  general  way,  is 
that  whose  dictates  are  surest  to  co-incide  with  utility. "  He 
means  by  "  good-will,"  benevolence.  Next  after  this  he  considers 
Love  of  Reputation  as  having  the  best  chance  of  co-inciding  with 
utility,  and  thinks  "  it  would  be  perfect  if  men's  likings  and  dis- 
likings  were  governed  exclusively  by  the  principle  of  utility,  and 
not,  as  they  often  are,  by  the  hostile  principles  of  asceticism,  and 
of  sympathy  and  antipathy."  And  he  makes  note  hereof  an  im- 
portant distinction  by  saying  that  "  love  of  reputation  is  inferior 
as  a  motive  to  good-will  in  not  governing  the  secret  actions." 
After  benevolence  and  love  of  reputation,  he  places  the  Desire  of 
Amity  "  close  personal  affection  " — which  according  to  his  own 
view,  is  only  a  more  restricted  form  of  love  of  reputation,  for  he 
says  that  "  according  as  we  extend  the  number  of  persons  whose 
amity  [  friendship  ]  we  desire,  this  prompting  approximates  the 
love  of  reputation.  His  fourth  social  or  tutelary  motive  he  calls 
the  Dictates  of  Religion,  which  so  placed  indicates  that  he  con- 
siders this  as  least  of  all  co-inciding  with  the  principle  of  utility  ! 
He  says  the  religious  motives  are  "  so  various  in  their  sugges- 
tions that    he  can  hardly  speak  of  them  in    common.     Were  the 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  75 

Being,  who  is  the  object  of  religion,  universally  supposed  to  be 
as  benevolent  as  he  is  supposed  to  be  wise  and  powerful,  and 
were  the  notions  of  his  benevolence  as  correct  as  the  notions  of 
his  wisdom  and  power,  the  dictates  of  religion  would  correspond, 
in  all  cases,  with  utility.  But  while  men  call  him  benevolent  in 
words,  they  seldom  mean  that  he  is  so  in  reality. "   -  Bain. 

Opposed  to  these  four  social  or  tutelary  motives,  as  he  classi- 
fies them,  he  opposes  the  Dis-social  and  Self-regarding  motives, 
which  I  have  not  space  here  to  say  more  about. 

Bentham  treats  of  punishments  for  what  he  calls  "  mischiev- 
ous" acts — acts  that  result  in  pernicious  consequences  to  others 
— at  length,  but  1  will  here  only  remark  that  he  says  that  "  so- 
ciety ought,  no  less  than  the  legislator,  to  be  guided  by  sound 
scientific  principles  "  in  the  administration  of  punishments. 

Bentham  makes  ethics  cover  a  much  broader  field  than  do 
many  other  writers.  He  does  not  restrict  it  to  conduct  of  man 
toward  his  fellow-men,  but  makes  a  three-fold  classification 
which  includes,  1 ,  man's  own  actions,  or  "  private  ethics ; "  2,  the 
actions  of  other  human  beings,  and  3,  the  actions  of  "  other  ani- 
mals," whose  interests  Bentham  thinks  "  have  been  disgracefully 
overlooked  by  jurists  as  well  as  by  mankind  generally!" 

Bentham,  though  like  Paley,  a  Utilitarian,  differs  much  from 
Paley  on  the  questions  of  the  relation  or  connection  of  theology 
or  "  religion  "  with  ethics.  As  Bain  says,  "While  Paley  makes  a 
conjoined  reference  to  Scripture  and  to  Utility  in  ascertaining 
moral  rules,  Bentham  insists  on  Utility  alone  as  the  final  appeal. 
He  does  not  doubt  that  if  we  had  a  clear,  unambiguous  state- 
ment of  the  divine  will,  we  should  have  a  revelation  of  what  is 
for  human  happiness;  but  he  distrusts  all  interpretations  of  scrip- 
ture unless  they  co-incide  with  a  perfectly  independent  scientific 
investigation  of  the  consequences  of  actions  "--a  Rationalistic 
position. 

SIR  JAMES  MACKINTOSH. 

This  writer  lived  contemporary  with  Jeremy  Bentham  (1765  to 
1832).  He  wrote  a  comprehensive  work.  Dissertation  on  the  Pro- 
gress of  Ethical  Philosophy    "chiefly  during    the  Seventeenth  and 


76  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

Eighteenth  Centuries, "  in  which  he  incorporates  his  own  views 
and  "  advocates  a  distinct  ethical  theory." 

He  divided  his  book  into  sections,  and  in  the  first,  "  Prelimi- 
nary Observations,"  he  treats  of  the  universal  distinction  among 
men  of  right  and  wrong,  and  avers  that  "on  no  subject  do  men, 
in  all  ages,  co-incide  on  so  many  points  as  on  the  general  rules 
of  conduct  and  the  estimable  qualities  of  character.  Even  the 
grossest  deviations  may  be  explained  by  ignorance  of  facts,  by 
errors  with  respect  to  the  consequences  of  actions,  or  by  incon- 
sistency with  admitted  principles."  He  criticises  Paley  and  Ben- 
tham  for  confounding  the  standard  of  ethics  with  the  moral  fac- 
tor of  the  mind,  and  says  that  Paley  mistakes  in  opposing  utility 
to  a  moral  sense  because  the  two  terms  relate  to  different  sub- 
jects, and  that  "it  is  possible  to  represent  utility  as  the  criterion 
of  right,  and  a  moral  sense  as  the  faculty,"  and  also  that  Ben- 
tham  repeats  Paley's  error,  and  that  "  the  school  men  failed  to 
draw  the  distinction, 

In  his  fifth  section  he  treats  of  "  the  moral  faculty  and  the  so- 
cial affections,"  and  states  his  objections  to  the  theory  that  moral 
distinctions  are  founded  solely  on  reason.  He  says,  "reason  can 
never  be  a  motive  to  action ;"  it  is  necessary  to  appeal  to  the  feel- 
ings— the  effect  of  pleasure  or  pain.  "  The  influence  of  reason  is 
indirect ;  it  is  merely  a  channel  whereby  the  objects  of  desire  are 
brought  into  view,  so  as  to  operate  on  the  will."  In  this,  I  think 
his  criticism  is  well-founded.  Reason  is  not  a  motive  to  either 
right  or  wrong,  but  a  guide  to  right  and  frorr}  wrong  as  foreseeing 
the  good  or  evil  of  a  line  of  conduct. 

Mackintosh  seems  to  see  this  distinction  clearly,  and  remarks 
upon  "  the  importance  of  reason  in  choosing  the  means  of  action, 
as  well  as  in  balancing  ends,  during  which  operation  the  feelings 
are  suspended,  delayed  and  poised  in  a  way  favorable  to  our  last- 
ing interests.  Hence  the  antithesis  of  reason  and  passion."  He 
lays  down  m  his  sixth  section,  two  fundamental  propositions,  as 
follows  :  I ,  The  moral  sentiments  have  no  other  objects  than 
the  dispositions  to  voluntary  actions  and  the  actions  flowing  from 
these  dispositions  ;  2,  Conscience  is  an  acquired  principle.     And 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  77 

he  discusses  these  propositions  at  length.  He  endorses  Hume's 
ethical  doctrine  that  "  utility  is  a  uniform  ground  of  moral  dis- 
tinction,"  but  in  other  things  he  disagrees  with  Hume.  This 
whole  section  is  devoted  to  a  critical  survey  of  the  theories  of  a 
number  of  writers  on  ethics,  including  Butler,  Hume,  Adam 
Smith,  Hartley,  Paley,  Bentham,  Dugald  Stewart,  Thomas  Brown. 

in  his  seventh  section,  under  the  head  of  "  General  Remarks," 
Mackintosh  tries  to  elucidate  his  own  peculiar  views,  supple- 
mentary to  his  discussions  in  the  preceding  sections. 

Throughout  his  discussions  he  gives  special  and  frequent  at- 
tention to  the  question  of  the  relations  of  morality  to  religion  or 
theology. 

JAMES   MILL. 

Utility  as  the  ultimate  standard  of  morality  and  conscience 
as  a  derived  faculty  of  the  mind  may  justly  be  laid  down  as  the 
basic  principles  of  Mill's  ethical  philosophy ;  and  his  place  with 
the  ethical  writers  of  modern  times  is  well  marked,  and  his  name 
stands  out  prominently  in  the  list  as  that  of  a  real  thinker.  His 
time  was  from  I  783  to  1 836. 

Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind  is  the  title  of  his  great  work  on 
mental  philosophy,  and  in  chapters  xvii  to  xxiii,  inclusive,  are  set 
out  his  views  of  ethical  questions  in  remarkably  precise  defini- 
tions of  the  leading  terms  used  and  in  a  logical  treatment  which 
renders  the  work  one  of  great  permanent  value  and  a  veritable 
handbook  of  discipline  in  logical  discussion — not  only  as  to  these 
specifically-mentioned  chapters  but  as  to  the  entire  work. 

That  the  moral  feelings  are  a  complete  outgrowth  from  our 
experience  of  pleasure  and  pain  is  a  principle  which  Mill  strongly 
endeavors  to  establish.  And  in  beginning  by  assuming  that 
such  pleasurable  and  painful  sensations  that  constitute  our  expe- 
rience do  exist,  he  proceeds  to  enquire  as  to  their  immediate  and 
primary  or  originating  causes,  by  the  means  of  which  we  may 
secure  the  one  and  avoid  the  other  —attain  to  happiness  and 
escape  from  unhappiness. 

He  argues  that  "  the  remote  causes  of  our  pleasures  and  pains 
are  more  interesting  than  the  immediate  causes. "     He  illustrates 


78  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

this  by  'referring  to  "wealth,  power  and  dignity  as  causes  of  a 
great  range  of  pleasures,"  and  to  "  poverty,  impotence  [or  impo- 
tency]  and  contemptibility  "  as  causes  of  a  wide  range  of  painful 
sensations."  And  he  lays  stress  upon  the  fact  that  the  first 
of  these  series  of  causes  "  are  the  means  of  procuring  the  services 
of  our  fellow-creatures,"  as  "  a  fact  of  the  highest  consequence 
in  morals,  as  showing  how  deeply  our  happiness  is  entwined 
with  the  actions  of  other  beings  ' ;  and  he  quite  extensively  illus- 
trates this  idea  and  shows  that  the  influence  of  these  remote 
causes  is  entirely  the  result  of  mental  association,  which  he  con- 
siders to  be  a  power  of  mind  of  great  magnitude  and  import- 
ance. 

But  Mill  does  not  stop  at  this  direct  effect  of  the  remote  causes 
of  pleasure  or  happiness,  but  says  that  our  fellow-creatures  being 
the  subjects  of  affection  "  not  merely  as  the  instrumentality  set 
in  motion  by  wealth,  power  and  dignity,  but  in  their  proper  per- 
sonality," their  agency  extends  to  the  production  of  the  pleasur- 
able affections  of  friendship,  kindness,  kinship,  love  of  country 
(patriotism),  party  fealty,  humaneness,  etc. ;  and  he  "  resolves 
them  all  into  associations  with  our  primitive  pleasures,"  and  illus- 
trates his  ideas  of  this  quite  fully. 

In  chapter  xxii  of  his  work  the  author  treats  of  ethical  molives, 
and  defines  a  motive,  to  begin,  by  saying  that  "  the  peculiar  state 
of  mind  generated  "  "  when  the  idea  of  a  pleasure  is  associated 
with  an  action  of  our  own  as  the  cause,"  is  called  a  motive,  and 
that  "  the  idea  of  a  pleasure  writhout  the  idea  of  gaining  it  does 
not  amount  to  a  motive."  He  points  out  that  education  has 
much  to  do  with  the  strength  attained  by  motives,  and  calls  "  the 
facility  of  being  acted  on  by  motives  of  a  particular  kind,"  dispo- 
sition. In  these  chapters  the  questions  are  treated  in  the  abstract, 
but  in  chapter  xxiii  he  makes  concrete  application  of  those  prin- 
ciples to  practical  ethics  or  morals.  He  declares  that  "  the  actions 
emanating  from  ourselves  combined  with  those  emanating  from 
our  fellow-creatures  exceed  all  other  causes  of  our  pleasures  and 
pains,"  and  that  "  consequently  such  actions  are  objects  of  intense 
affections  or  regards." 

The  actions  of  utility  are  classed  under  the  four  heads  of  pru- 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  79 

dence,  fortitude,  justice  and  benevolence.  And  he  carefull}'  ex- 
plains that  the  first  and  second  of  these  classes  of  acts  are  "  use- 
ful to  ourselves  in  the  first  instance,  to  others  in  the  second 
instance,"  and  that  the  third  and  fourth  classes  of  acts  are  "  use- 
ful to  others  in  the  first  instance,  to  ourselves  in  the  second  in- 
stance." 

After  treating  at  length  on  the  effects  of  praise  and  dispraise 
in  determining  our  conduct  toward  our  fellow^-creatures,  the 
author  says  that  of  all  the  various  motives  "  the  most  constant  in 
operation  and  the  most  in  use  in  moral  training,  are  praise  and 
blame,"  and  that  "  it  is  the  sensibility  to  praise  and  blame — the 
joyful  feelings  associated  with  the  one  and  the  dread  associated 
with  the  other — that  gives  effect  to  popular  opinion,  or  the  popular 
sanction,  and  with  reference  to  men  generally,  the  moral  sanction." 

Mill  was  the  author  of  another  work,  entitled  A  Fragment  on 
Mackintosh,  in  which  he  further  illustrates  his  theory  of  the  deri- 
vation of  the  moral  sentiment  and  strongly  defends  the  principle 
of  utility  as  the  moral  standard,  agreeing  in  this  with  Bentham. 
In  treating  of  the  much-discussed  question  of  disinterested  feel- 
ings. Mill,  in  both  of  his  works,  takes  the  stand  that  "  though  we 
have  feelings  directly  tending  to  the  good  of  others,  they  are 
nevertheless  the  growth  of  feelings  that  are  rooted  in  self,"  and 
"  that  feelings  should  be  detached  from  their  original  root  is  a 
well-known  phenomenon  of  the  mind."     (Bain.) 

In  treating  of  ethics  Mill  confines  his  remarks  to  the  Standard 
and  the  Faculty,  and,  as  before  mentioned,  defends  the  theory  of 
Utilitarianism  that  the  standard  of  ethics  is  utility — and  the 
doctrine  of  the  faculty  being  "based  on  our  pleasures  and  pains, 
with  which  there  are  multiplied  associations."  He  believed  that 
all  existing  moral  rules  were  based  on  the  human  estimate,  cor- 
rect or  incorrect,  of  utility. 

WILLIAM   WHEWELL. 

Among  the  best  known  of  the  modern  ethical  writers  is  Dr. 
Whewell,  who  lived  from  I  794  to  1 876.  His  ethical  works  are 
Elements  of  Morality,  Including  'Polity,  and  Lectures  on  the  Historv 
of  Moral  Philosophy  in  England.  1  can  give  here  only  a  very  brief 
abstract  of  his  views  as  set  out  in  his  Elements.     He  lays  down 


80  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

as  fundamental  these  two  propositions :  Morality  has  its  root 
in  the  common  nature  of  man,  and  a  scheme  [  or  system  ]  of 
morality  must  conform  to  the  common  sense  of  mankind,  in  so  far 
as  that  is  consistent  with  itself.  But  he  immediately  notes  that 
this  common  sense  of  mankind  has  in  every  age  led  to  two 
seemingly  opposite  schemes  of  morality,  the  one  making  virtue, 
and  the  other  making  pleasure,  the  rule  of  action.  On  the  one 
side,  men  urge  the  claims  of  rectitude,  duty,  conscience,  the  moral 
faculty ;  on  the  other,  they  declare  utility,  expediency,  interest, 
enjoyment,  to  be  the  proper  guides.  ( Bain.)  Dr.  Whewell 
then  says  "  both  systems  are  liable  to  objections,  and  that  it  is 
necessary  that  a  scheme  of  morality  should  surmount  both  classes 
of  objections";  and  then  he  proceeds  to  attempt  a  harmonizing 
of  these  two  opposing  theories.  This  by  way  of  introduction,  as 
set  out  in  the  fourth  edition  of  his  Elements. 

In  brief,  the  following  outlines  his  views  on  the  main  question 
of  ethics  : 

I . — The  Standard,  as  discussed  incidentally  in  his  Introduction, 
as  above  referred  to.  2. — The  Psychology  of  the  Moral  Faculty, 
which  he  considers  to  be  "  a  part  of  a  classification  of  our  active 
powers,"  which  he  calls  "  springs  of  action,"  and  which  he  class- 
ifies as,  (a)  the  Appetites  ;  (b)  the  Affections ;  (c)  the  Mental 
Desires;  (d)  the  Moral  Sentiments;  (e)  the  Reflex  Sentiments, 
in  this  connection  the  author  refers  to  the  office  of  reason  in  its 
relation  to  the  Moral  Sentiments  in  these  words  :  "  The  Practical 
Reason,  which  guides  us  in  applying  rules  to  our  actions  and  in 
discerning  the  consequences  of  actions."  3.  —  The  Summum 
bonurn  or  happiness,  he  says  "  must  be  found  in  our  moral  pro- 
gress ;  we  must  be  happy  by  being  virtuous.  4. — The  Moral 
Code,  discussed  in  connection  with  the  moral  rules,  and  he  enu- 
merates as  cardinal  virtues  (as  the  substance  of  morality)  benev- 
olence, justice,  truth,  purity  and  order.  5. — The  Relation  of 
Ethics  to  Politics.  This  he  considers  as  one  of  independence, 
yet  of  considerable  intimacy.  6. — The  Morality  of  Religion,  con- 
sidered as  supplemental  to  the  Morality  of  Reason.  Here  he 
remarks  that  the  separation  of  these  two  "  enables  us  to  trace  the 
the  results  of  the  moral  guidance  of  human  Reason  consistently 
and  continuously,  while  we  still  retain  a  due  sense  of  the  supe- 
rior authority  of  Religion,"  thus  placing  his  "  scheme"  of  morality 
in  the  classification  as  a  theological  system,  though  timidly  so 
acknowledged  by  him. 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  81 

JOHN   STUART   MILL. 

Utilitarianism  is  the  laconic  title  of  a  work  on  the  basis  of 
ethics  written  by  John  Stuart  Mill,  and  the  name  and  theory  of 
Utilitarianism  has  ever  since  been  associated  with  the  name  of 
that  author  in  the  minds  of  all  students  of  ethical  philosophy. 
And  his  logical  treatment  of  the  subjects  and  questions  relating 
to  ethics  has  won  for  Mill  a  place  at  the  very  forefront  of  the 
modern  ethical  philosophers. 

His  work  begins  with  an  introductory  chapter  of  "  General 
Remarks, "  and  he  starts  out  upon  the  discussion  in  Chapter  II 
by  the  inquiry,  "What  Utilitarianism  Is?"  He  defines  the  prin- 
ciple as  that  "  actions  are  right  in  proportion  as  they  tend  to  pro- 
mote happiness — wrong  as  they  tend  to  produce  the  reverse  of 
happiness."  And  he  means  by  happiness,  pleasure  and  the 
absence  of  pain ;  and  by  unhappiness,  pain  and  the  deprivation  of 
of  pleasure.  He  very  soon  refers  to  the  well-known  objection 
that  "  pleasure  is  a  low  and  grovelling  object  of  pursuit,"  and 
answers  by  saying  that  men  are  capable  of  enjoying  pleasures 
which  are  not  base,  and  that  the  theory  of  Utility  embraces  the 
fact  that  "some  kinds  of  pleasure  are  more  valuable  than  others." 
He  thinks  the  sense  of  dignity  is  inseparable  from  the  estimate 
of  pleasure   and   "determines  a  preference  among  enjoyments." 

As  to  the  Standard  of  Utility,  Mill  considers  that  this  distinc- 
tion is  not  essential  to  its  justification,  which  standard  he  says  is 
not  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  agent  only,  but  "  the  greatest 
amount  of  happiness  altogether."  And  though  the  higher 
virtues  may  contribute  little  to  the  agent's  own  pleasure  or  hap- 
piness, mankind  in  general  is  benefitted  by  them.  To  the  objec- 
tion that  real  happiness  is  unattainable,  and  that  no  one  has  a 
natural  right  to  it,  he  answers  that  "  supposing  happiness  impos- 
sible, the  prevention  of  unhappiness  might  still  be  an  object, 
which  is  a  mode  of  utility";  yet  he  does  not  admit  that  happi- 
ness is  impossible,  but  charges  that  the  statement  of  the  objection 
is  an  exaggeration  or  a  mere  verbal  quibble.  We  do  not  mean 
a  whole  "  life  of  sustained  rapture,"  but  "  occasional  moments  of 


82  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

such  in  an  existence  of  few  and  transitory  pains ;  many  and 
various  pleasures,  with  a  predominance  of  the  active  over  the 
passive,  and  moderate  expectations  on  the  whole,  constitute  a  life 
worthy  to  be  called  happiness. " 

The  factors  of  pleasure  he  says  are  "  tranquility  and  excite- 
ment," and  that  with  the  one,  little  pleasure  is  satisfactory,  and 
with  the  other  much  pain  can  be  endured. 

Of  self-sacrifice,  Mr.  Mill  says  that  "  it  is  the  highest  virtue 
that  can  be  found  in  man  when  it  is  made  to  serve  the  happi- 
ness of  others,"  but  such  a  state  of  the  world  as  requires  the 
sacrifice  of  one's  own  happiness  to  serve  the  happiness  of  others 
is  a  very  imperfect  one ;  but  "  the  conscious  ability  to  do  without 
happiness  in  such  a  condition  of  the  world,  is  the  best  prospect 
of  realizing  such  happiness  as  is  attainable."  A  sacrifice  not 
resulting  in  the  increase  of  the  sum  of  human  happiness  is 
wasted,  and  yet  self-devotion  is  as  much  a  part  of  Utilitarianism 
as  it  is  of  Stoicism. 

The  Golden  Rule,  Mr.  Mill  thinks,  is  "  the  ideal  perfection  of 
Utilitarian  morality."  And  he  teaches  that  "  the  means  of  ap- 
proaching this  ideal  are,  that  laws  and  society  should  endeavor 
to  place  the  interest  of  the  individual  in  harmony  with  the  inter- 
est of  the  whole,  and  that  education  and  opinion  should  establish 
in  the  mind  of  each  individual  an  indissoluble  association  between 
his  own  good  and  the  good  of  the  whole." 

Another  objection  to  the  utilitarian  system  is  that  it  is  "too 
high  for  humanity  " ;  "  men  cannot  be  perpetually  acting  with  a 
view  to  the  general  interests  of  society."  To  this  he  answers 
that  it  is  an  error  of  mistaking  the  meaning  of  a  standard,  and 
"confounds  the  rule  of  action  with  the  motive."  Ethics,  in  general, 
informs  men  of  their  duties  or  by  what  test  they  may  know 
what  they  are,  but  "no  system  of  ethics  requires  that  the  motive 
of  every  action  should  be  a  feeling  of  duty ;  our  actions  are 
rightly  done  provided  only  duty  does  not  condemn  them."  He 
thinks  nearly  all  the  acts  of  men  end  with  the  good  of  the  indi- 
vidual, and  that  "  it  happens  to  few  persons,  and  that  rarely,  toc 
be  public  benefactors." 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  83 

Another  objection  which  he  answers  is  that  utility  "  renders 
men  cold  and  unsympathizing,  chills  the  feelings  towards  indi- 
viduals and  regards  only  the  dry  consequences  of  actions,  with- 
out reference  to  the  moral  qualities  of  the  agent."  He  admits 
that  "a  right  action  does  not  necessarily  indicate  a  virtuous  char- 
acter,"  but  that  in  general,  "  the  best  proof  of  a  good  character  is 
good  actions. " 

To  the  theological  objection  to  utility  that  it  is  "a  godless  doc- 
trine," he  answers  that  "  whoever  believes  in  the  perfect  goodness 
and  wisdom  of  God  necessarily  believes  that  whatever  he  has 
thought  fit  to  reveal  on  the  subject  of  morals  must  fulfill  the 
requirements  of  utility  in  a  supreme  degree."  The  religious 
objection  that  utility  is  "an  immoral  doctrine,  by  carrying  out 
expediency  in  opposition  to  principle,"  he  answers  by  saying  that 
"  the  expedient  in  this  sense  means  what  is  expedient  for  the 
agent  himself,  and,  instead  of  being  the  same  thing  w^ith  the 
useful,  is  a  branch  of  the  hurtful.  It  would  often  be  expedient 
to  tell  a  lie,  but  so  momentous  and  so  widely-extended  are  the 
utilities  of  truth,  that  veracity  is  a  rule  of  transcendant  expediency. 
Yet  all  moralists  admit  exceptions  to  it,  solely  on  account  of  the 
manifest  inexpediency  of  observing  it  on  certain  occasions." 

The  most  common  objection  to  Utilitarianism,  that  "it  is  im- 
possible to  make  a  calculation  of  consequences  previous  to  every 
action,"  he  answ^ers  by  remarking  that  it  "  is  as  much  as  to  say 
that  no  one  can  be  under  the  guidance  of  Christianity  because 
there  is  not  time  on  the  occasion  of  doing  anything  to  read 
through  the  Old  and  New  Testaments."  But  his  serious  answer 
is  that  "  there  has  been  ample  time  during  the  past  duration  of 
the  species."  During  all  that  time  men  have  by  experience  been 
learning  the  consequence  of  actions  and  on  the  results  of  that 
founded  rules  of  prudence  and  morality. 

Finally,  Mr.  Mill  replies  to  the  standing  objection  that  "  people 
will  pervert  utility  for  their  private  ends,  by  saying  there  is  no 
ethical  creed  in  which  this  may  not  happen,  and  that  "  the  fault 
is  due,  not  to  the  origin  of  the  rule,  but  to  the  complicated  nature 
of  human  affairs  and  the  necessity  of  allowing  a  certain  latitude. 


84  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

under  the  moral  responsibility  of  the  agent,  for  accommodation 
to  circumstances." 

The  Ultimate  Sanction  of  the  Principle  of  Utility  is  the  title  of 
Chapter  III  of  Mill  s  work,  and  he  considers  it  a  proper  question 
with  any  proposed  moral  standard  to  ask,  "  What  is  its  Sanction  "? 
— "wherein  lies  its  binding  force?"  He  considers  the  sanctions 
of  utility  under  two  heads.  External  and  Internal.  The  External 
embraces  the  hope  of  favor  and  fear  of  disapprobation,  from,  first 
one's  fellows,  second  from  God,  with  sympathy  or  affection  for 
his  fellows,  or  love  and  reverence  of  God,  inducing  one  away 
from  selfish  motives.  These  are  the  sanctions  of  other  systems 
of  morality,  but  "  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not  apply 
as  well  to  utilitarian  morality.  The  internal  sanction  is  nothing 
else  than  what  is  known  as  the  conscience,  which  Mill  defines  as 
a  complex  phenomenon,  involving  associations  from  sympathy, 
love  and  fear,  from  recollections  of  childhood  and  of  all  one's 
past  life ;  from  self-esteem,  desire  of  the  approbation  of  others, 
and  occasionally  even  self-abasement.  And  he  says  the  binding 
force  of  this  is  "  the  mass  of  feeling  to  be  broken  through  in  order 
to  violate  one's  standard  of  right,"  which,  "  if  violated  will  later 
have  to  be  encountered  as  remorse. " 

Thus  the  ultimate  sanction,  aside  from  the  external,  under 
utility,  as  in  other  systems,  is  the  conscientious  feelings.  If  the 
conscience  is  innate,  "  the  intuitive  ethics  would  be  the  same  as 
the  utilitarian."  But,  as  the  author  believes,  if  the  moral  feelings 
are  not  innate,  "  they  are  not  for  that  reason  less  natural."  "  The 
moral  faculty,  if  not  a  part  of  our  nature,  is  a  natural  outgrowth 
of  it,  capable  in  a  certain  small  degree  of  springing  up  sponta- 
neously, and  of  being  brought  to  a  high  pitch  by  cultivation," 
and  may  also  "be  perverted  to  absurdity  and  mischief."  He 
illustrates  this  by  referring  to  the  fact  that  it  is  natural  for  man 
to  speak,  reason,  cultivate  the  soil,  etc.,  etc.,  though  these  are 
acquired  faculties. 

The  social  feelings  are  found  to  be  the  sentiment  capable  of  sup- 
porting the  natural  basis  of  the  utilitarian  morality.  He  says  that 
the  social  condition  is  so  natural  to  man      so  necessary  and  habit- 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  85 

ual  to  him — that  he  can  hardly  conceive  of  himself  as  not  a 
member  of  society,  and  this  association  becomes  more  fixed  and 
forcible  as  civilization  advances.  He  wisely  holds  that  "  in  an 
improving  state  of  society,  the  influences  are  on  the  increase  that 
generate  in  each  individual  a  feeling  of  unity  with  all  the  rest; 
which,  if  perfect,  would  make  him  never  think  of  anything  for 
self,  if  they  also  were  not  included.  Suppose,  now,  that  this 
feeling  of  unity  were  taught  as  a  religion,  and  that  the  whole 
force  of  education,  of  institutions,  and  of  opinion,  were  directed 
to  make  every  person  grow  up  surrounded  with  the  profession 
and  the  practice  of  it,  can  there  be  any  doubt  as  to  the  sufficiency 
of  the  ultimate  sanction  for  the  happiness  of  morality?"  (Bain's 
Moral  Science,  p.  293.) 

In  the  fourth  chapter  of  Mill's  Utilitarianism  is  discussed  "  Of 
what  sort  of  proof  the  principle  of  utility  is  susceptible. "  The 
theory  of  Utility  is  that  happiness  is  desirable  as  an  end,  and  all 
other  things  are  desirable  as  means  to  that  end.  The  proof  he 
refers  to  in  this  way :  "  The  proof  that  the  sun  is  visible,  is  that 
people  actually  see  it,  so  the  proof  that  happiness  is  desirable  is 
that  people  do  actually  desire  it. "  The  reason  that  the  general 
happiness  is  desirable  is  the  fact  that  each  one  desires  his  own 
happiness,  and  realizes  that  by  his  association  with  others  it 
depends  upon  their  happiness  also. 

Utilitarians  maintain  that  virtue  is  a  thing  to  be  desired  for 
itself.  They  hold  that  the  mind  is  not  in  a  condition — in  a 
right  state — not  conformable  to  utilitj' — not  in  a  state  conducive 
to  the  general  happiness,  "  unless  it  has  adopted  this  essential 
instrumentality  so  warmly  as  to  love  it  for  its  own  sake. "  Cer- 
tain things  originally  of  the  nature  of  means,  come  by  associa- 
tion to  be  a  part  of  the  social  end.  "So  virtue  is  not  originally 
an  end,  but  ii  is  capable  of  becoming  so ;  it  is  to  be  desired  and 
cherished  not  solely  as  a  means  to  happiness,  but  as  a  part  of 
happiness. " 

Bain  says  that  "  the  author  considers  it  proved  that  there  is 
in  reality  nothing  desired  except  happiness.  *  *  *  Human 
nature  is  so  constituted,    he  thinks,  that  we  desire  nothing    but 


86  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

what  is  either  a  part  of  happiness  or  a  means  of  happiness ;  and 
no  other  proof  is  required  that  these  are  the  only  things  desirable. 
Whether  this  psychological  assertion  be  correct,  must  be  deter- 
mined by  the  self-consciousness  and  observation  of  the  most 
practical  observers  of  human  nature. "     (Moral  Science,  p.  295.) 

The  persistence  in  a  course  of  conduct  long  after  the  origmal 
desire  has  passed  away  is  due  to  force  of  habit,  "  and  is  nowise 
confined  to  virtuous  actions.  Will  is  amenable  to  habit ;  we  may 
will  from  habit  what  we  no  longer  desire  for  itself.  But  will  is 
the  child  of  desire,  and  passes  out  of  the  dominion  of  its  parent 
only  to  come  under  the  sway  of  habit."  The  other  influences 
are  not  sufficient  to  be  depended  upon  to  maintain  unerring  con- 
stancy in  a  course  of  virtuous  conduct  until  they  have  acquired 
the  further  support  of  habit;  and  this  is  the  justification  of  its 
existence  and  our  submission  to  it. 

"On  the  Connection  Between  Justice  and  Utility,"  is  the  title 
of  Chapter  V  of  Mill's  little  book  on  Utilitarianism  ;  and  in  that 
he  discusses  what  he  considers  to  be  the  "  strongest  obstacle  to 
the  doctrine  of  Utility, "  viz:  that  drawn  from  the  idea  of  justice. 
It  has  been  claimed  that  "the  rapid  perception  and  the  powerful 
sentiment  connected  with  the  Just,  seem  to  show  it  as  generic- 
ally  distinct  from  every  variety  of  the  Expedient. "  Mill  discusses 
the  question  of  the  essential  nature  of  justice  at  some  length, 
and  I  cannot  here  more  than  refer  the  reader  to  this  portion  of 
his  answer.  But  he  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  idea  of 
justice  is  grounded  in  law;  and  then  proceeds  to  answer  the 
question  whether  the  feeling  or  sentiment  of  justice  grows  out  of 
considerations  of  utility,  by  saying  that  "  though  the  notion  of 
expediency  or  utility  does  not  give  birth  to  the  sentiment,  it  gives 
birth  to  what  is  moral  in  it." 

He  considers  Justice  as  constituted  of  two  essentials;  first, 
"  the  desire  to  punish  some  one,"  and  second,  "the  notion  or  be- 
lief that  harm  has  been  done  to  some  definite  individual."  And 
he  believes  "the  desire  to  punish  is  a  spontaneous  outgrowth  of 
two  sentiments,  both  natural,  and,  it  may  be,  instinctive :  the 
impulse  of  self-defense  and  the  feeling  of  sympathy."     He  remarks 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  87 

here  that  "there  is  nothing  moral  in  mere  resentment ;  the  moral 
part  is  the  subordination  of  it  to  our  social  regards,"  and  that 
"  we  are  moral  beings  in  proportion  as  we  restrain  our  private 
resentment  whenever  it  conflicts  with  the  interests  of  society." 

The  author  believes  that  "  there  is  in  Justice  a  rule  of  conduct, 
and  a  right  on  the  part  of  some  one,  which  ought  to  be  enforced 
by  society" ;  and  to  the  question  why  society  ought  to  enforce  the 
right,  he  replies  that  "  there  is  no  answer  but  the  general  utility." 

After  presenting  his  own  theory  of  justice  as  a  moral  senti- 
ment, he  proceeds  to  examine  the  theory  of  intuition — that  the 
sense  of  justice  is  innate  and  not  an  acquired  setiment. 

Mill  proceeds  to  illustrate  his  ideas  here  as  follows — briefly 
outlined : 

"  On  the  question  of  Punishment,  some  hold  it  unjust  to  pun- 
ish anyone  by  way  of  example,  or  for  any  end  but  the  good  of 
the  sufferer  ;  others  maintain  that  the  good  of  society  is  the  only 
admissible  end  of  punishment.  Robert  Owen  affirms  that  pun- 
ishment altogether  is  unjust,  and  that  we  should  deal  with  crime 
only  through  education.  Now,  without  an  appeal  to  expediency, 
it  is  impossible  to  arbitrate  between  these  two  views — each  one 
has  a  maxim  of  justice  on  its  side." 

As  to  the  proportion  of  penalty  to  offense,  he  says  "  the  rule 
that  recommends  itself  to  the  primitive  sentiment  of  justice  [  as 
in  children  and  uncivilized  peoples  is  universal  ]  is  'an  eye  for  an 
eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  ' ;  a  rule  formally  abandoned  in 
European  countries,  although  [yet]  not  without  its  hold  upon  the 
popular  mind.  With  many,  the  test  of  justice  in  penal  infliction 
is  that  it  should  be  proportioned  to  the  offense,  while  others 
maintain  that  it  is  just  to  inflict  only  such  an  amount  of  punish- 
ment as  will  deter  from  the  commission  of  the  offense. 

Briefly,  Mill's  idea  of  the  great  distinction  between  the  Just 
and  the  Elxpedient  is  the  distinction  between  the  essentials  of 
well-being:  the  moral  rules  forbidding  mankind  to  hurt  one 
another  and  the  rules  that  only  point  out  the  best  mode  of  man- 
aging some  department  of  human  affairs." 

As  to  the  doctrine  of   the   freedom  of  the  will,  Mr.  Mill  was  a 


88  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

Determinist — maintaining  "  the  strict  causation  of  human  actions, 
and  refuting  the  supposed  fatalistic  doctrine  of  a  determined 
will.  He  believed  that  our  disinterested  impulses  arise  from  a 
purely  relf-regarding  origin. 

In  his  work  on  Liberty,  Mill,  in  treating  of  "  Individuality," 
illustrates  "the  great  importance  of  special  tastes,  and  urges  the 
full  right  of  each  person  to  the  indulgence  of  these  in  every  case 
where  they  do  not  directly  injure  others." 

As  to  marriage,  he  declaims  against  the  legal  and  moral  rule 
of  the  code  that  makes  it  irrevocable,  and  "  he  would  also  abolish 
all  restraint  on  freedom  of  thought,  and  on  individuality  of  conduct, 
qualified  as  above,"  in  regard  to  injury  of  others.  Consequently, 
Mill  was  a  Freethinker. 

Although  1  believe  in  Utilitarianism  as  the  true  basic  principle 
of  ethics,  1  do  not  mean  by  that  word  exactly  what  is  generally 
understood  to  be  John  Stuart  Mill's  meaning  of  it.  He  seems  to 
mean  that  the  measure  of  utility  of  an  act,  or  series  of  acts  con- 
stituting a  line  of  conduct,  is  the  pleasure  or  happiness  effected 
thereby,  while  1  think  the  pleasure  or  happiness  is  not  the  ulti- 
mate end  of  morality,  but  that  the  ultimate  end,  the  unconscious 
object,  of  all  human  activity,  and  of  pleasure  and  pain  as  means 
to  that  end,  is  the  welfare  and  continuity  of  either  the  individual 
or  the  race ;  though  the  conscious  effort  may  be  directed  to  pleas- 
ure or  happiness  as  the  ultimate  end — "the  chief  good"  or  "sum- 
mum  honum  "  of  the  old-time  philosophers.  Nature  provides  that 
certain  acts  give  us  pleasure  or  happiness  as  an  inducement  for 
us  to  do  those  acts  to  the  end  that  our  health  and  our  lives  may 
be  preserved,  or  the  species  be  propagated  and  perpetuated.  But 
this  pleasure  is  not  aninfallible  guide  to  right  acts,  for  we  find 
that  some  acts  destructive  to  health  and  life  give  us  immediate 
pleasure  ;  hence  our  intemperate  indulgence  in  useful  things  and 
attempted  use  of  things  exclusively  injurious.  Hence,  pleasure 
or  happiness  cannot  be  a  true  measure  of  utility. 

The  end  of  right  acts  and  lines  of  conduct  —with  ihem  pleas- 
ure and  pain  being  the  life  of  the  individual  or  the  race,  or  their 
welfare,  the  utility  of  an  act  or  course  of  conduct  is  one  of  these 
results,  and  the  contrary,  if  the  acts  or  lines  of  action  are  wrong. 
Therefore  the  true  measure  of  utility  is  the  perpetuation  of  life. 


THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS  89 

SAMUEL    BAILEY. 

In  the  third  series  of  Letters  on  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human 
Mind,  Samuel  Bailey  devotes  four  chapters  to  the  consideration 
of  moral  sentiments,  or  "  the  feelings  inspired  in  us  by  human 
conduct."  As  the  basis  of  moral  conduct,  he  states  five  funda- 
mental facts,  as  follows :  "  Man  is  susceptible  of  pleasure  and 
pain  of  various  kinds  and  degrees.  He  likes  and  dislikes  re- 
spectively the  causes  of  them.  He  desires  to  reciprocate  pleas- 
ure and  pain  received,  when  intentionally  given  by  other  sentient 
beings.  He  himself  expects  such  reciprocation  from  his  fellows, 
coveting  it  in  the  one  case  and  shunning  it  in  the  other.  He 
feels,  under  certain  circumstances,  more  or  less  sympathy  with 
the  pleasures  and  pains  given  to  others,  accompanied  by  a  pro- 
portionate desire  that  those  affections  should  be  reciprocated  to 
the  giver."  And  these  "  affections,  states  and  operations  of  con- 
sciousness "  are  feelings  in  combination  with  intellectual  pro- 
cesses, and  are  more  or  less  developed  in  nearly  all  of  the  human 
race. 

The  feelings,  he  thinks,  are  modified  accordmg  as  actions  are, 
first,  "  done  to  ourselves  by  others  "  ;  second,  "  done  to  others  by 
others,"  or  third,  "  done  to  others  by  ourselves." 

Bailey  considers  the  standard  of  ethics  to  be  the  production  of 
happiness,  and  the  moral  faculty  as  "mainly  composed  of  certain 
sentiments,  chiefly  reciprocity  and  sympathy,"  mvolved  with  in- 
tellectual processes. 

IMMANUEL    KANT. 

Kant  lived  from  1724  to  1804,  and  his  ethical  writings  were 
published  in  1  785,  1  788  and  I  797.  He  wrote  three  important 
works.  Foundation  for  the  Metaph^sic  of  Morals,  Critique  of  the 
T^ractical  Reason,  and  Metaphysic  of  ^M^orals,  this  last  containing 
the  detailed  presentation  of  his  ethical  system,  the  other  two 
containing  his  theories  in  general. 

The  system  of  Kant  is  one  extremely  involved  in  speculation 
and  peculiar  expressions  in  his  phraseology  which  render  the 
study  of  that  system  one  requiring  close  and  long  application — 
in  order  to  gain  a  clear  conception  of  it — if  that  be  at  all  possi- 


90  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

ble.  Hence  in  this  place  1  can  no  more  than  very  briefly  and 
imperfectly  set  forth  something  of  the  nature  of  Kant's  ethical 
doctrines.  He  distinguishes  the  modes  of  treating  ethics  as 
empirical  and  rational,  and  these  as  not  the  same.  He  also  dis- 
tinguishes between  "  common  rational  knowledge  of  morals " 
and  philosophical  morals,  and  argues  to  prove  the  absolute 
goodness  of  the  will  by  proving  its  natural  subjection  to  reason  ; 
and,  "  since  reason  is  a  practical  faculty  and  governs  the  will,  its 
functions  can  only  be  to  produce  a  will  good  in  itself, '  and  "  such 
a  will  if  not  the  onl^  good,  is  certainly  the  highest." 

He  asserts  that  all  genuine  supreme  principles  of  morality  rest 
on  pure  reason  only. 

Kant  discusses  the  will  quite  extensively,  and  the  presentation 
of  his  ideas  are  so  much  involved  in  his  peculiar  phraseology 
and  technical  verbiage  that  much  study  and  close  application  are 
required  to  successfully  apprehend  his  meaning.  He  makes  a 
distinction  between  "  natural "  and  "  rational  beings  "  by  averring 
that  the  actions  of  things  in  nature  are  according  to  laws,  while 
rational  beings  act  according  to  conceived  ideas  of  laws ;  that  is, 
principles ;  and  to  do  this  is  to  have  a  will,  which  he  identifies 
with  practical  reason,  as  reason  is  required  to  deduce  actions 
from  laws.  And  in  connection  with  the  discussion  of  will,  he 
discusses  duty. 

Kant  sets  out  several  formulae  for  action  according  to  practical 
reason,  as  follows  : 

1 .  "Act  according  to  that  maxim  only  which  you  can  wish  at 
the  same  time  to  become  a  universal  law, "  or  "act  as  if  the  maxim 
of  your  action  ought  by  your  will  to  become  the  universal  law  of 
nature. " 

2.  "Act  so  as  to  use  humanity  (human  nature)  as  well  in  your 
own  person  as  in  the  person  of  another,  ever  as  end  also,  and 
never  merely  as  means." 

3.  "The  idea  of  a  will  of  every  rational  being  as  a  will  that 
legislates  universally."      (Bain.) 

Freedom  of  the  will  in  man  as  a  rational  end  or  thing-in-itself 
is  the  great  postulate  of  the  pure  practical  reason,  he  avers,  "  be- 


THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS  91 

cause  else  there  could  be  no  explanation  of  the  categorical  im- 
perative of  duty, "  yet  admits  that  the  fact  must  always  remain 
speculatively  undemonstrable. 

Kant  postulates  immortality  and  God,  as  being  "  required  to 
render  possible  the  attainment  of  inoral  perfection, "  and  "  in  order 
to  find  the  ground  of  the  required  conjunction  of  felicity."  The 
certainties  of  these  postulates  are  said  to  be  "  moral  certainties," 
being  demanded  by  the  practical  reason. 

It  is  a  difficult  task  to  construct  an  intelligible  synopsis  of 
Kant's  abstruse  and  technical  system  of  ethics,  or  rather  of  eth- 
ical theories.  Yet  I  shall  offer  here  an  outline  that  the  careful 
student  may  be  able  to  use  as  first  step,  at  least,  tov^ard  an  un- 
derstanding of  Kant's  philosophy  in  detail  as  presented  by 
himself. 

1 .  The  Standard  of  Ethics — of  good  moral  courses  of  action 
(i.  e.  "will ")  — as  expressed  in  the  different  forms  of  the  categor- 
ical imperative,  is  the  possibility  of  its  being  universally  extended 
as  a  law  for  all   rational  beings ;  or,  obversely,  "  all  action  is  bad 

that  cannot  be,  or  cannot  be  wished  to  be,  turned  into  a  universal 
law. " 

2.  Psychology  of  Ethics.  As  stated  above,  he  considers  the 
mental  faculty  to  be  the  "  pure  practical  reason. "  That  we  ap- 
prehend what  is  morally  right  by  the  exercise  of  reason  exclu- 
sively ;  the  element  of  feeling  as  respect  for  the  law  is  imposed 
by  reason.  In  speaking  of  "  the  pure  reason, "  Kant  means  a 
faculty  of  principles,  and  belongs  to  two  classes,  viz:  the  specu- 
lative and  the  practical  reason.  The  speculative  requires  the 
knowledge  of  the  understanding  to  be  brought  up  to  "certain 
higher  unconditioned  unities-  soul,  cosmos,  God  ;  but  it  is  erro- 
neous to  regard  these  as  facts  of  knowledge.  The  practical  sets 
up  a  law  of  duty  unconditioned  by  motives,  in  which,  and  the 
"related  conception  of  the  summum  bonum,  is  contained  a  moral  cer- 
tainty" of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  freedom  in  an  environment 
of  natural  necessity,  and  of  God  as  existing.  Kant  lays  great 
stress  on  disinterested  action  and  ignores  disinterested  sentiment 
as  a  mere  sentiment ;  so  that  only  actions  that  are  wholly  devoid 


92  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

of  any  element  of  self-interest  are  considered  by  him  as  moral. 
Virtue,  he  considers,  not  as  the  performance  of  acts  we  are 
strongly  inclined  to  do,  but  such  as  involve  more  or  less  of  self- 
sacrifice,  so  that,  in  a  sense,  virtue  and  altruism  are  synonymous 
terms. 

3.  Happiness,  Kant  considers  not  to  be  the  end  of  action. 
This  latter  he  considers  to  be  the  self-assertion  of  the  reason  over 
the  inferior  propensities  -the  physical  appetites  and  self-seeking 
desires.  To  seek  happiness  is  a  duty  only  because  thereby  one 
is  "  kept  from  neglecting  his  other  duties."  The  need  of  happi- 
ness to  this  end  he  avers  is  connected  with  the  sensuous  element 
of  human  nature.  And  there  is  necessarily  an  ultimate  equation 
of  virtue  and  happiness. 

4.  The  Moral  Code  of  Kant  is  fully  set  out  in  the  second  part 
of  his  latest  work.  In  this  he  classes  duties  into  moral  and  legal, 
the  first  enforced  by  the  conscience,  the  other  externally  enforced, 
the  two  classes  being,  I ,  Duties  to  Self ;  2,  Duties  to  Others. 
The  end  of  duties  of  the  first  class  is  the  perfection  of  the  actor, 
"for  his  own  happiness  being  provided  for  by  a  natural  propensity 
is  to  himself  no  duty."  Duties  to  self  are  enumerated  as  perfect 
and  imperfect,  the  former  being  directed  to  self-conservation,  the 
latter  to  the  advancement  or  perfection  of  one  s  being.  The 
perfect  are  "  directed  against  self-destruction,  sexual  excess,  in- 
temperance in  eating  and  drinking,  lying,  avarice  and  servility  "  ; 
the  imperfect  refer  to,  first,  physical,  second,  moral  advancement 
or  perfection.  Duties  to  others  have  regard  to  their  happiness, 
the  only  end,  according  to  Kant,  that  one  can  make  a  duty  of  — 
their  perfection  can  only  come  from  their  own  efforts.  He  classes 
the  duties  to  others  as  those  of  love  and  of  recpect.  These  are 
classed  as  "beneficence,  gratitude,  fellow-feeling";  "duties  of 
respect,  absolutely  due  to  others  as  men  ;  the  opposites  are  vices, 
as  haughtiness,  slander,  scornfulness."  Friendship  is  a  combina- 
tion of  love  and  respect  in  the  highest  degree.  Social  duties  he 
regards  as  "  outworks  of  morality  ;'  he  admits  of  "  no  special 
duties  to  God  or  the  inferior  creatures  beyond  what  is  contained 
in  moral  perfection  as  duty  to  self." 


THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS  93 

5.  Law,  in  Kant's  conception,  in  a  transcendental  sense  is  an 
important  element  of  his  theory  of  ethics  ;  but  he  uses  the  term 
not  as  identifying  or  assimilating  morality  with  political  or  gov- 
ernmental institutions,  "  the  legality  of  external  actions  "  being 
"determined  by  reference  to  the  one  universal  moral  imperative, " 
as  well  as  "  the  morality  of  internal  Jtspositions."  Legal  or  jural,  as 
opposed  to  ethical  or  moral,  provisions,  must  unite  the  freedom 
of  each  with  the  freedom  of  all — "individual  freedom  and  the 
freedom  of  all  must  be  made  to  subsist  together  in  a  universal 
law. " 

6.  Religion,  with  Kant,  is  identical  with,  or  at  least  very  closely 
allied  with  morality,  but  without  the  connection  being  at  "  the 
expense  of  morality. "  He  does  not  conceive  of  morality  as 
being  dependent  upon  religion,  but  on  the  contrary,  he  "can  find 
nothing  but  the  moral  conviction  whereon  to  establish  the  relig- 
ious doctrines  of  immortality  and  the  existence  of  God."  And 
he  even  avers  that  "  religion  consists  merely  in  the  practice  of 
morality  as  a  system  of  divine  commands,"  and  he  considers  the 
moral  consciousness  as  the  standard  by  which  to  judge  of  all 
religious  dogmas  and  institutions. 


SKCTiox  vn. 
VIEWS  OF  ETHICAL  EVOLUTIONISTS. 

HERBERT  SPENCER. 

RATIONALISTS,  everywhere,  hold  in  high  esteem  the 
writings  of  Herbert  Spencer,  regardless  of  whether 
they  do  or  do  not  agree  with  him  in  his  theories  or  his  conclu- 
sions. He  stands  out  so  boldly  from  all  those  writers  on  ethics 
1  have  herein  classed  as  "  modern,"  that  he  is  justly  entitled  to 
bfc  put  into  a  class  by  himself  and  treated  of  as  a  philosopher  of 
today;  for,  though  his  material  body  has  returned  to  the  earth 
and  air,  his  "  spirit," — his  ideas  and  influences — still  lives  in  his 
books  and  in  the  minds  of  his  readers  as  that  of  one  still  bodily 
with  them. 

Spencer  undertook  a  great  life  work  when  he  planned  his 
"  System  of  Synthetic  Philosophy."  He  laid  out  for  himself  a 
course  and  extent  of  intellectual  and  physical  labor  that  would 
seem  appalling  to  many  a  strong  man,  though  Spencer  was  strong 
only  in  his  mentality,  being  physically  far  from  robust.  And  it 
is  wonderful  what  a  large  amount  of  work  he  accomplished  in 
his  lifetime,  in  the  composition  of  his  very  comprehensive  system 
of  philosophy.  This  labor  began  to  weigh  heavily  upon  him 
some  years  before  it  was  completed,  so  that  he  began  to  antici- 
pate the  possibility  and  even  probability  that  he  might  not  con- 
tinue in  sufficient  health,  or  even  in  life,  to  complete  the  program 
he  had  mapped  out,  and  so,  to  make  sure  that  the  crowning 
conclusions  of  his  system  might  be  recorded,  he  wrote  his  Data 
of  Ethics  before  writing  his  other  work  on  the  Principles  of  Soci- 
ology:, which  in  its  true  order  precedes  his  Principles  of  Morality, 
of  which  his  Data  of  Ethics  constitutes  the  first  division. 

In  his  preface  to  the  Data,  referring  to  this  anticipation  of  fail- 
ure to  complete  his  great  task  as  planned,  and  referring  to  this 
last  part  of  his  work  being  written  before  its  proper  successor, 
Spencer    remarks    that    "  this  last  part  of  the  task  it  is  to  which  1 


THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS  95 

regard  all  the  preceding  parts  as  subsidiary,"  and  that  from  the 
first  onward  his  "  ultimate  purpose,  lying  behind  all  proximate 
purposes,  has  been  that  of  finding  for  the  principles  of  right  and 
wrong,  in  conduct  at  large,  a  scientific  basis. "  He  says  further  : 
"  1  am  the  more  anxious  to  indicate  in  outline,  if  1  cannot  com- 
plete, this  final  work  because  the  establishment  of  rules  of  right 
conduct  on  a  scientific  basis  is  a  pressing  need.  Now  that  moral 
injunctions  are  losing  the  authority  given  by  their  supposed  sacred 
origin,  the  secularization  of  morals  is  becoming  imperative." 

Thus  Mr.  Spencer  places  himself  exactly  in  line  with  the 
Rationalistic  Humanitarian,  who,  seeing  the  decay  of  faith  in 
supernatural  revelation  as  authority  for  right  conduct,  seeks  to 
find  a  reasonable  authority  for  it  on  a  scientific  basis. 

Furthermore,  Mr.  Spencer  agrees  with  the  Humanitarian  con- 
servative yet  radical  principle  that  while  the  reformer  may  de- 
stroy fallacies  and  idols,  he  at  the  same  time  should  establish 
truths  and  rational  ideals  to  take  their  places  in  the  human  mind 
lest  moral  chaos  results,  for  he  says  that  "  few  things  can  happen 
more  disastrous  than  the  decay  and  death  of  a  regulative  system 
no  longer  fit,  before  another  fitter  regulative  system  has  grown 
up  to  replace  it."      Elucidating  this  more  fully,  he  says  : 

Most  of  those  who  reject  the  current  creed  appear  to  assume 
that  the  controlling  agency  furnished  by  it  may  safely  be  thrown 
aside  and  the  vacancy  left  unfilled  by  any  other  controlling 
agency.  Meanwhile,  those  who  defend  the  current  creed  allege 
that  in  the  absence  of  the  guidance  it  yields,  no  guidance  can 
exist;  divine  commandments  they  think  the  only  possible  guides. 
Thus,  between  these  extreme  opponents  there  is  a  certain  com- 
munity. The  one  holds  that  the  gap  left  by  disappearance  of 
the  code  of  supernatural  ethics  need  not  be  filled  by  a  code  of 
natural  ethics,  and  the  other  holds  that  it  cannot  be  so  filled. 
[That  is,  the  one  that  it  need  not  be  so  filled,  the  other  that  it  can 
not.]  Both  contemplate  a  vacuum,  which  the  one  wishes  and 
the  other  fears.  As  the  change  which  promises  or  threatens  to 
bring  about  this  state,  desired  or  dreaded,  is  rapidly  progressing, 
those  who  believe  the  vacuum  can  be  filled,  and  that  it  must  be 
filled,  are  called  upon  to  do  something  in  pursuance  of  that  belief. 

This  is  exactly  the  basis  of  the  difference  which  I  conceive  to 


96  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

exist  between  the  iconoclastic  Freethinker  and  the  Rationalistic 
Humanitarian.  The  one  believes  that  this  "vacuum"  is  desirable 
and  need  not  be  filled;  the  other,  the  Humanitarian,  believes  that 
the  old  should  pass  av/ay,  but  that  its  place  should  be  filled,  before 
a  vacuum  is  produced;  that  a  system  of  natural,  scientific  morals 
should  instantly  replace  the  conglomerate  supernatural,  supposed- 
revealed  moral  injunctions.  And  in  a  small  attempt  to  in  part 
carry  out  this  idea,  this  essay  on  "  The  Origin  and  Evolution  of 
Ethics  "  w^as  undertaken  by  the  editor  of  The  Humanitarian  Re- 
vicvv.  If  it  can  be  shown  that  morality  originated  in  nature  and 
was  not  supernaturally  revealed,  and  that  our  rules  of  conduct 
have  been  evolved  in  the  experience  of  mankind  as  associated 
individuals  in  an  interdependent  solidarity  that  is  indispensable 
to  the  very  existence  of  man  as  man,  the  scientific  basis  of  nat- 
ural ethics  will   have  been  established. 

Mr.  Spencer  truly  says  that  "  great  mischief  has  been  done  by 
the  repellant  aspect  habitually  given  to  moral  rule  by  its  expos- 
itors, and  immense  benefits  are  to  be  anticipated  from  presenting 
moral  rule  under  that  attractive  aspect  which  it  has  when  undis- 
torted  by  superstition  and  asceticism." 

Here  is  another  prefatory  remark  by  Spencer  which  seems  to 
me  to  be  not  only  true  to  facts  but  eminently  pertinent  in  this 
place : 

Just  as  the  rampant  egoism  of  a  brutal  militancy  was  not  to 
be  remedied  by  attempts  at  the  absolute  subjection  of  the  ego  in 
convents  and  monasteries,  so  neither  is  the  conduct  of  ordinary 
humanity  as  now  existing  to  be  remedied  by  upholding  a  stand- 
ard of  abnegation  beyond  human  achievement.  Rather  the 
effect  is  to  produce  a  despairing  abandonment  of  all  attempts  at 
a  higher  life.  And  not  only  does  an  effort  to  achieve  the  impos- 
sible end  in  this  way,  but  it  simultaneously  discredits  the  possible. 
By  association  with  rules  that  cannot  be  obeyed,  rules  that  can 
be  obeyed  lose  their  authority.  *  *  Since  the  days 

of  persecution,  a  curious  change  has  taken  place  in  the  behavior 
of  so-called  orthodoxy  towards  so-called  heterodoxy.  The  time 
was  when  a  heretic,  forced  by  torture  to  recant,  satisfied  authorit}' 
by  external  conformity ;  apparent  agreement  sufficed,  however 
profound   continued  to  be  the  real  disagreement.      But  now  that 


THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS  97 

the  heretic  can  no  longer  be  coerced  into  professing  the  ordinary 
belief,  his  belief  is  made  to  appear  as  much  opposed  to  the  ordi- 
nary as  possible.  Does  he  diverge  from  established  theological 
dogma?  Then  he  shall  be  an  atheist,  however  inadmissible  he 
considers  the  term.  Does  he  think  spiritualistic  interpretation  of 
phenomena  not  valid  ?  Then  he  shall  be  classed  as  a  materialist, 
indignantly  though  he  repudiates  the  name.  And  in  like  manner 
what  differences  exist  between  natural  morality  and  supernatural 
morality,  it  has  become  the  policy  to  exaggerate  into  funda- 
mental antagonisms. 

Mr.  Spencer  being  charged  with  opposition  to  the  theory  of 
Utilitarianism,  he  very  clearly  stated  in  a  letter  to  John  Stuart  Mill 
his  idea  of  the  object  of  "morality  properly  so-called — the  science 
of  right  conduct" — as,  "  to  determine  how  and  whp  certain  modes 
of  conduct  are  detrimental  and  certain  other  modes  beneficial." 
And  he  adds  that  "  these  good  and  bad  results  cannot  be  acci- 
dental, but  must  be  necessary  consequences  of  the  constitution 
of  things;  and  I  concieve  it  to  be  the  business  of  moral  science 
to  deduce  from  the  laws  of  life  and  the  conditions  of  existence 
what  kinds  of  action  necessarily  tend  to  produce  happiness  and 
what  kinds  to  produce  unhappiness.  Having  done  this,  its  de- 
ductions are  to  be  recognized  as  laws  of  conduct ;  and  are  to  be 
conformed  to  irrespective  of  a  direct  estimation  of  happiness  or 
misery."  That  is,  we  are  to  judge  of  the  utility  of  an  act  not  by 
its  specific  immediate  results,  but  by  the  known  general  results  of 
the  act.  He  thus  asserts  his  acceptance  of  the  doctrine  of 
Utility  as  modified  by  his  explanation. 

But  Mr.  Spencer,  in  this  same  letter,  like  nearly  all  other  moral 
philosophers,  says  he  believes  that  "happiness  is  the  ultimate 
end  to  be  contemplated,"  but  does  "  not  admit  that  it  should  be 
the  proximate  end."  This,  1  contend,  is  an  error  based  on,  or 
caused  by,  a  mental  illusion  to  which  all  men  are  subject,  namely, 
that  we  live  to  be  happy,  while  truly  (and  unconsciously)  we  try 
to  gain  happiness  because  it  leads  us  on  the  road  to  continued 
individual  or  race  life.  In  this  sense,  life — the  conservation  and 
perpetuation  of  life,  and  the  reproduction  of  tissues  and  individ- 
uals—  is  the  ultimate  end  of  both  right  action  and  happiness. 
This  places  happiness   under  the  head  of   proximate  end,  which 


98  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

Spencer  denies,  though  he  evidently  uses  the  word  proximate  in 
a  somewhat  different  application  from  that  in  which  1  herem  use 
it.  He  means  by  proximate,  the  immediate  results  of  an  act,  and 
by  ultimate  the  general  and  less  readily  perceived  results.  He, 
with  other  ethical  writers,  seems  not  to  be  conscious  of  the  fact 
that  nature  uses  pleasure  and  happiness  only  as  rewards  to  in- 
duce a  course  of  conduct  that  leads  to  the  preservation  of  the 
life  of  the  individual  and  the  species,  but  that  we  act  to  this  end 
unconsciously.  For  instance,  the  gratification  of  the  sensual 
tastes  is  not  ultimately  the  pleasure  we  derive  from  eating  and 
drinking,  etc.,  but  the  supplying  to  the  body  the  needed  materials 
for  rebuilding  wasted  tissues.  The  species  would  soon  become 
extinct  if  it  were  not  for  the  pleasure  attendant  upon  the  gratifi- 
cation of  the  sexual  desire,  and  that  pleasure  is  only  a  provision 
of  nature  to  induce — seduce,  if  you  will — beings  into  acts  which 
otherwise  would  be  repugnant  and  painful,  in  order  that  the  race 
may  continue  to  exist.  The  formula,  then,  as  1  see  it  is :  The 
conscious  or  proximate  end  of  all  our  acts  is  happiness  ;  the  uncon- 
scious or  ultimate  end,  preservation  of  life. 

In  The  'Data  of  Ethics,  Spencer  lays  his  foundation  in  a  dis- 
cussion of  conduct  in  general,  in  section  one  beginning  with  a 
very  elementary  explanation  of  the  idea  that  correlatives  imply 
one  another.  From  this  principle  he  proceeds,  in  the  second 
section  of  Chapter  1,  to  a  consideration  of  human  conduct.  He 
enters  the  discussion  of  ethics  proper  by  saying  :  "Conduct  is  a 
whole ;  and,  in  a  sense,  it  is  an  organic  whole — an  aggregate  of 
independent  actions  performed  by  an  organism.  That  division 
or  aspect  of  conduct  with  which  ethics  deals,  is  a  part  of  this 
whole — a  part  having  its  components  inextricably  bound  up 
with  the  rest.  *  *  The    behavior  we   call    good    and 

the  behavior  we  call  bad  are  included,  along  with  the  behavior 
we  call  indifferent,  under  the  conception  of  behavior  at  large. 
The  whole  of  which  ethics  forms  a  part,  is  the  whole  constituted 
by  the  theory  of  conduct  in  general ;  and  this  whole  must  be 
understood  before  the  part  can  be  understood." 

Mr.  Spencer  then  proceeds  to  define  conduct,  first  asserting 
that  "  it  is  not  co-extensive  with  the  aggregate  of  actions,  though 


THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS  99 

it  is  nearly  so."  The  exceptions  he  refers  to  here  are  such  as 
are  purposeless,  for  instance  such  actions  as  those  of  one  in  an 
epileptic  fit,  etc.  He  then  defines  conduct  in  two  ways ;  first,  as 
"acts  adjusted  to  ends,"  and  second,  as  "the  adjustment  of  acts 
to  ends,  according  as  we  contemplate  the  formed  body  of  acts  or 
think  of  the  form  alone."  Thus  he  arrives  at  the  further  defini- 
tion that  "  conduct  in  its  full  acceptation  must  be  taken  as  com- 
prehending all  adjustments  of  acts  to  ends,  from  the  simplest  to 
the  most  complex,  whatever  their  special  natures  and  whether 
considered  separately  or  in  their  totality." 

After  giving  this  definition  of  conduct  in  general  as  dintin- 
guished  from  the  larger  whole  of  actions  in  general,  he  goes  on 
to  inquire  what  distinguishes  the  conduct  on  which  ethical  judg- 
ments are  made  from  the  remainder  of  conduct  in  general. 
And  first,  he  here  points  out  what  he  calls  indifferent  conduct 
as  having  no  ethical  significance,  giving  as  examples,  a  walk  to 
the  waterfall  or  a  ramble  along  the  seashore,  in  which,  he  says, 
"  the  ends  are  ethically  indifferent,"  and  illustrates  further  by 
saying  it  is  a  matter  of  ethical  indifference  whether,  "  if  I  go  to 
the  waterfall,  I  shall  go  over  the  moor  or  take  the  path  through 
the  wood."  But  1  am  disposed  to  think  that  this  differentiation 
is  not  critically  and  scientifically  exact.  Speaking  more  exactly, 
I  should  say  such  actions  are  apparently  indifferent  ethically. 
We  are  unable  to  see  any  ethical  end  resulting  from  them  ;  and 
yet  there  may  be  an  ethical  end  resulting  indirectly  from  such 
acts  through  their  influence  upon  our  health  or  our  disposition 
or  our  intellectual  alertness  and  clearness.  Such  so-called  ethic- 
ally indifferent  conduct  may  thus  really  be  positively  of  ethical 
import  as  determining  future  actions  of  direct  ethical  results — 
good  or  bad.  To  this  statement  regarding  indifferent  actions, 
Spencer  adds  that  "  from  hour  to  hour  most  of  the  things  we  do 
are  not  to  be  judged  as  either  good  or  bad  in  respect  of  either 
ends  or  means."  And  this,  1  admit,  is  true,  from  a  popular 
point  of  view,  though  not  from  a  scientifically  exact  point  of  view. 
!  conceive  that,  as  either  diredh  or  Undirectlp  leading  to  ethical 
ends,  all  actions  are  parts  of  ethical  conduct  in  general. 

But   in   declaring   that   the   transition   trom  indifferent  acts  to 


100  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

acts  which  are  good  or  bad  is  gradual,  Spencer  virtually  admits 
that  there  is  in  fact  no  line  of  demarcation  between  his  so-called 
indifferent  acts  and  ethical  acts — that  the  difference  is  only  appa- 
rent, and  is  more  exactly  defined  as  the  one  being  a  class  of  acts 
whose  ends  are  directly,  and  the  other  whose  ends  are  indirectly), 
good  or  bad. 

Mr.  Spencer  takes  a  broad  and  comprehensive  view  of  the 
basis  of  ethical  conduct  by  contemplating  conduct  in  general  as 
so  wide  of  range  as  to  include  the  conduct  of  all  animate  beings, 
including  with  that  of  man  that  of  animals.  He  considers  the 
conduct  of  human  beings  as  only  "a  part  of  universal  conduct — 
conduct  as  exhibited  by  all  living  creatures,"  as  the  conduct  of 
all  living  beings,  brute  as  well  as  human,  comes  within  the  defi- 
nition of  acts  adjusted  to  ends.  He  explains  that  "the  conduct 
of  the  higher  animals  [below  man]  as  compared  with  that  of 
man,  and  the  conduct  of  the  lower  animals  [in  the  scale  of  brutes] 
as  compared  with  that  of  the  higher,  mainly  differ  in  this,  that 
the  adjustments  of  acts  to  ends  are  relatively  simple  and  rela- 
tively incomplete,"  and  that  "we  must  interpret  the  more  devel- 
oped by  the  less  developed."  So  he  lucidly  explains  further  thus: 
"  Just  as,  fully  to  understand  the  part  of  conduct  which  ethics 
deals  with,  we  must  study  human  conduct  as  a  whole,  so  fully 
to  understand  human  conduct  as  a  whole,  we  must  study  it  as  a 
part  of  that  larger  whole  constituted  by  the  conduct  of  animate 
beings  in  general " — which  includes  both  man  and  beast. 

Further,  this  broad  view  is  still  more  to  be  widened  by  a  con- 
templation of  conduct  in  general  of  all  animate  beings  now  dis- 
played to  include  "  the  less-developed  conduct  out  of  which  this 
has  arisen  in  the  course  of  time."  Being  an  evolutionist,  Spencer 
consistently  avers  that  "  we  have  to  regard  the  conduct  now 
shown  us  by  creatures  of  all  orders  as  an  outcome  of  the  con- 
duct which  has  brought  life  of  every  kind  to  its  present  height. 
And  this  is  tantamount  to  saying  that  our  preparatory  step  must 
be  to  study  the  evolution  of  conduct."  And  this  step  is  taken 
in  the  second  chapter  of  his  Data  of  Ethics. 

Right  here  is  a  statement  by  Mr.  Spencer  which  sustains  my 
idea  of  the  ultimate  end  of  all  right  conduct  being  not  happiness 


THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    EJHICS  101 

but  preservation  and  continuation  of  life,  for  he  says  that  the 
conduct  of  all  the  past  of  creatures  of  all  orders  is  "  an  outcome, 
of  the  conduct  which  has  brought  life  of  every  k.ind  to  its  present  height!' 
(My  italics.)  An  outcome  is  an  end;  if  the  present  height  of 
life  of  every  kind  has  been  brought  about  by  the  conduct  of  the 
past,  then  that  high  degree  of  life  has  been  the  end  of  that  con- 
duct, and  not  the  happiness  or  pleasure  of  the  actors,  which  was 
merely  a  means  to  that  end.  He  arrived  near  the  truth  here 
without  however  being,  apparently,  aware  of  its  existence  but 
one  step  ahead. 

Mr.  Spencer  begins  his  treatment  of  the  evolution  of  conduct 
by  remarking  that,  having  familiarized  ourselves  with  the  idea 
of  an  evolution  of  structures,  and  that  "an  evolution  of  functions 
has  gone  on  pari  passu  with  the  evolution  of  structures,"  the  next 
step  is  to  "  frame  a  conception  of  the  evolution  of  conduct  as 
correlated  with  this  evolution  of  structures  and  functions." 

He  says  "  we  are  concerned  with  functions  in  the  true  sense 
while  we  think  of  them  as  processes  carried  on  within  the  body ; 
and,  without  exceeding  the  limits  of  physiology,  we  may  treat 
of  their  adjusted  combinations,  so  long  as  these  are  regarded  as 
parts  of  the  vital  consensus."  After  referring  to  the  internal 
physiological  functions  in  co-operation  to  ends,  and  "  how  parts 
that  act  directly  on  the  environment  —legs,  arms,  wings — perform 
their  duties,  we  are  still  concerned  with  functions  in  that  aspect 
of  them  constituting  physiology  so  long  as  we  restrict  our  atten- 
tion to  internal  processes  and  to  internal  combinations  of  them. 
But  we  enter  on  the  subject  of  conduct  when  we  begin  to  study 
such  combinations  among  the  actions  of  sensory  and  motor 
organs  as  are  externally  manifested."  This  he  illustrates  quite 
fully  by  reference  to  examples,  and  then  lays  down  the  proposi- 
tion that  "  the  initial  adjustment  of  an  act  to  an  end,  inseparable 
from  the  rest,  must  be  included  with  them  under  the  same  gen- 
eral head ;  and  obviously,  from  this  initial  simple  adjustment  hav- 
ing no  moral  character,  we  pass  by  degrees  to  the  most  complete 
adjustments  and  to  those  on  which  moral  judgments  are  passed." 
And  hence  he  concludes  that  conduct  is  "  the  aggregate  of  all 
external  co-ordinations,  and  this  aggregate  includes  not  only  the 
simplest   as   well    as    the   most   complex    performed    by   human 


102  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

beings,  but  also  those  performed  by  all  inferior  beings  considered 
as  less  or  more  evolved." 

In  section  4  of  the  Data,  Spencer  treats  in  detail  the  advance 
of  the  evolution  of  conduct  up  from  the  lowest  types  of  living 
creatures  to  the  highest,  beginning  Vk'ith  the  apparently  purpose- 
less movements  of  an  infusorium,   which,  he  says,  moves  about 
"  determined    in    its  course  not    by  a  perceived  object  to  be  pur- 
sued or  escaped,  but,  apparently,  by  varying   stimuli   in   its   me- 
dium [environment]."     And    he  says    that  "  in    the   very    lowest 
creatures  most  of  the  movements  from  moment  to  moment  made 
have  not  more  recognizable  aims  than  have  the  struggles  of  an 
epileptic."      He    then   illustrates  the  process  of  evolution  of  con- 
duct by  citing  the  character  of  the  actions  of  higher   and   higher 
animate  beings,  from  the  rotifers  and  mullusca,  low  forms  com- 
pared   with    higher   ones,  to  vertebrate  animals,  from    the    fish, 
"  roaming   about   at   hazard    in    search   of  something  to  eat,  and 
now   and   again    rushing    away    in    alarm    at    the  approach  of  a 
bigger  fish,  makes  adjustments  of  acts  to  ends  that  are  relatively 
few  and  simple  in  their  kinds,"  to  the  elephant,  in  which   "  these 
general  actions  performed  in  common  with  "the  fish  are  far  better 
adjusted  to  ttieir  ends,      *      *      *     l-j^f  t}^e  chief  difference  arises 
from    the    addition   of    new   sets    of    adjustments."     And    then, 
going  to  the  top  of  the  scale,  to  man,  he  says,   "  we  not  only  find 
that  the  adjustment  of  acts  to  ends  are  both  more  numerous  and 
better  than  among  lower  mammals,  but  we  find  the  same  thing 
on  comparing   the   doings   of  higher  races  of  men  with  those  of 
the  lower  races.  *  *  And  when  with  the  ordinary  activities  of  the 
savage  we  compare  the  ordinary  civilized  activities      *       *      we 
see  sets  of  adjustments  of  acts  to  ends  not  only  immensely  ex- 
ceeding   those  seen   among   lower   races   of  men    in  variety  and 
intricacy,  but  acts  to  which  lower  races  of  men   present  nothing 
analogous.     And  along  with  this  greater  elaboration  of  life  pro- 
duced  by  the    pursuit   of  more   numerous   ends  there  goes  that 
increased  duration  of  life  which  constitutes  the  supreme  end." 

Here  Mr.  Spencer  is  carried  by  his  own  logical  ratiocination  to 
the  conclusion  that  "  increased  duration  of  life  constitutes  the 
supreme  end  "  of  conduct,  almost  exactly  stating  the  proposition 
1  have  herein  referred  to  as  to  the  ultimate  end  of  right  conduct 
being  the   conservation   and    perpetuation   of  life,  as  opposed  to 


THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS  103 

the  theory  that  happiness  constitutes  the  supreme  end.  And 
yet  Mr.  Spencer  does  not  seem  to  be  conscious  of  the  fact  that 
he  had  herein  contradicted  his  own  premise  that  happiness  is 
the  end  of  right  conduct;  so  that  in  formula  he  embraces  the  old 
doctrine  of  happiness  as  the  sumnium  bonum  while  in  fact  he 
himself  proves  that  it  is  not,  but  that  life — "increased  duration 
of  life"  is  the  "chief  good,"  or  end  of  right  conduct. 

And  further,  he  not  only  sees  this  end  of  conduct,  increased 
duration  of  life,  but  he  continues  by  saying  that  "  besides  being 
an  improving  adjustment  of  acts  to  ends,  such  as  furthers  in- 
creased amount  of  life " — a  supplementary  statement  which 
brings  his  proposition  as  a  whole  still  nearer  to  the  completeness 
of  the  statement  that  the  end  of  right  conduct  is  the  conservation 
and  continuation  of  life.  He  recognizes  this  deficiency  in  the 
former  statement,  unattended  by  this  later  supplementary  statej 
ment  in  these  words: 

"  Length  of  life  is  not  by  itself  a  measure  of  evolution  of  con- 
duct, but  quantity  of  conduct  must  be  taken  into  account,      * 

*  the  augmentation  of  it  [life]  which  accompanies  evolution 
of  conduct  results  from  increase  of  both  factors.  *  *  *  £ach 
further  evolution  of  conduct  widens  the  aggregate  of  actions 
while  conducing  to  elongation  of  it." 

In  section  5,  Mr.  Spencer  approaches  still  nearer  the  true  ethical 
end,  in  his  opening  paragraph  saying  : 

"  Thus  far  we  have  considered  only  those  adjustments  of  acts 
to  ends  which  have  for  their  final  purpose  complete  individual 
life.  Now  we  have  to  consider  those  adjustments  which  have 
for  their  final  purpose  the  life  of  the  species."  This  commits 
his  whole  theory  of  conduct,  if  not  of  ethical  conduct,  to  the  doc- 
trine that  the  summiim  bonum  of  all  normal  conduct  is  the  con- 
servation and  perpetuation  of  the  life  of  the  individual  or  of  the 
species  or  race.  And  this  law  is  fully  in  accord  with  the  other 
general  laws  of  the  evolution  of  all  animate  beings. 

In  treating  of  acts  whose  end  is  race  preservation  Spencer  says : 

"Throughout  the  ascending  grades  of  the  animal  kingdom, 
this  second  kind  of  conduct  presents  stages  of  advance  like  those 
which  we  have  observed  in  the  first.     Low  down,  where  struct- 


104  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

ures  and  functions  are  little  developed  and  the  power  of  adjust- 
ing acts  to  ends  but  slight,  there  is  no  conduct,  properly  so  named, 
furthering  salvation  of  the  species.  Race-maintaining  conduct, 
like  self-maintaining  conduct,  arises  gradually  out  of  that  which 
cannot  be  called  conduct ;  adjusted  actions  are  preceded  by  un- 
adjusted ones. " 

He  illustrates  this  by  citing  the  cases  of  the  protozoa,  which 
merely  "divide  and  subdivide  in  consequence  of  physical  changes 
over  which  they  have  no  control,"  in  which  case  conduct  cannot 
be  alleged.  Similarly,  higher  up,  germ  cells-and  sperm-cells,  are 
sent  forth  to  their  fate,  unprotected  and  unprovided  for.  In  the 
case  of  fish  and  the  higher  crustaceans,  a  sort  of  action  adjusted 
to  ends  occurs,  which  may  be  called  a  simple  kind  of  conduct. 
In  some  fishes,  "  the  male  keeps  guard  over  the  eggs,  driving 
away  intruders,  there  is  additional  adjustment  of  acts  to  ends, 
and  the  applicability  of  the  name  conduct  is  more  decided  "  than 
in  case  of  those  species  in  which  the  female  merely  selects  a 
suitable  place  to  deposit  her  eggs  and  then  leaves  them  to  their 
fate,  unattended  by  either  parent. 

He  then  passes  to  the  mention  of  "  creatures  far  superior,  such 
as  birds,  which  building  nests  and  sitting  on  their  eggs,  feed  their 
broods  for  considerable  periods,  and  give  them  aid  after  they  can 
fly;  or  such  mammals,  which  suckling  their  young  for  a  time, 
continue  afterward  to  bring  them  food  or  protect  them  while 
they  feed,  until  they  reach  ages  at  which  they  can  provide  for 
themselves,  we  are  shown  how  this  conduct  which  furthers  race- 
maintainance  evolves  hand-in-hand  with  the  conduct  which  fur- 
thers self-maintainance.  That  better  organization  which  makes 
possible  the  first  also." 

Coming  up  to  man,  he  compares  the  savage  with  the  brute, 
and  finds  in  him  a  higher  development  of  both  the  self-maintain- 
ing and  the  race-maintaining  conduct.  Then  comparing  civil- 
ized man  with  savage  man,  he  finds  this: 

"  The  adjustment  of  acts  to  ends  in  the  rearing  of  children 
becomes  far  more  elaborate  alike  in  the  number  of  ends  met, 
variety  of  means  used,  and  efficiency  of  their  adaptations ;  and 
the  aid  and   oversight  are  continued   throughout  a  much  greater 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  105 

part  of  early  life."  So  that  he  finds  these  two  kinds  of  conduct 
mutually  dependent,  and  "  neither  can  evolve  without  evolution 
of  the  other,  and  the  highest  evolutions  of  the  two  must  be 
reached  simultaneously. " 

Then  Mr.  Spencer  enters  upon  a  consideration  of  the  third 
kind  of  conduct,  which  he  explains  inductively  thus : 

"  The  multitudinous  creatures  of  all  kinds  which  fill  the  earth 
cannot  live  wholly  apart  from  one  another,  but  are  more  or  less 
in  presence  of  one  another — are  interfered  with  by  one  another. 
In  large  measure  the  adjustments  of  acts  to  ends  which  we  have 
been  considering  are  components  of  that  '  struggle  for  existence ' 
carried  on  both  between  members  of  the  same  species  and  be- 
tween members  of  different  species ;  and  very  generally  a  suc- 
cessful adjustment  made  by  one  creature  involves  an  unsuccess- 
ful adjustment  made  by  another  creature,  either  of  the  same 
kind  or  of  a  different  kind." 

He  illustrates  this  by  citing  the  facts  that  herbiverous  animals 
must  die  that  carnivorous  ones  may  live,  the  death  of  many  small 
birds  is  necessary  for  the  maintainance  of  the  life  of  the  hawk 
and  her  brood,  and  the  worm  and  insect  must  die  that  the  small 
bird  may  live  ;  and  even  in  the  same  species  the  competition  is 
attended  with  similar  results.  Then  he  truthfully  observes  that 
"  among  creatures  whose  lives  are  carried  on  antagonistically, 
each  of  the  two  kinds  of  conduct  delineated  above  must  remain 
imperfectly  evolved ;  *  *  even  in  such  few  kinds  as  have 
little  to  fear  from  enemies  or  competitors,  as  lions  or  tigers,  there 
is  still  inevitable  failure  in  the  adjustments  of  acts  to  ends  toward 
the  close  of  life ;  death  by  starvation  from  inability  to  catch 
prey  shows  a  falling  short  of  conduct  from  its  ideal." 

But  Mr.  Spencer  then  calls  attention  to  conduct  which  he  de- 
clares is  perfectly  evolved — "  adjustments  such  that  each  creature 
may  make  them  without  preventing  them  from  being  made  by 
other  creatures."     And  he  says  : 

"  That  the  highest  form  of  conduct  must  so  be  distinguished 
is  an  inevitable  implication  ;  for,  while  the  form  of  conduct  is 
such  that  adjustments  of  acts  to  ends  by  some  necessitate  non- 
adjustments   by   others,    there    remains    room    for    modifications 


106  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

which   bring  conduct    into   a    form  avoiding  this  and  so  making 
the  totality  of  life  greater." 

Here  he  virtually  concludes  that  the  highest  form  of  conduct 
has  for  its  end  the  greatest  totality  of  life — life,  not  happiness. 

Then,  coming  to  the  concrete,  he  discusses  the  conditions 
under  which  the  conduct  of  men  "  in  all  three  aspects  of  its  evo- 
lution reaches  its  limit."     Thus  : 

While  the  lives  led  are  entirely  predatory,  as  those  of  savages, 
the  adjustments  of  acts  to  ends  fall  short  of  this  highest  form  of 
conduct  in  every  way.  Individual  life,  ill  carried  on  from  hour 
to  hour,  is  prematurely  cut  short ;  the  fostering  of  offspring  often 
fails,  and  is  incomplete  when  it  does  not  fail ;  and  in  so  far  as 
the  ends  of  self-maintenance  are  met,  they  are  met  by  destruction 
of  other  beings  of  different  kind  or  of  like  kind.  In  social  groups 
*  *  conduct  remains  imperfectly  evolved  in  proportion  as 
there  continue  antagonisms  between  the  groups  and  betw^een 
members  of  the  same  group  -two  traits  necessarily  associated, 
since  the  nature  which  prompts  international  aggression  prompts 
aggression  of  individuals  on  one  another.  Hence  the  limit  of 
evolution  can  be  reached  by  conduct  only  in  permanently  peace- 
ful societies. 

But  this  condition  of  society  is  a  purely  ideal  one,  and  is 
never,  and  never  can  be,  actualized  to  perfection.  Spencer  says 
it  "can  be  approached  only  as  war  decreases  and  dies  out."  But 
there  are  many  other  inevitable  social  antagonisms  besides  war. 

Now  he  proceeds  to  fill  up  what  he  calls  "  a  gap  in  this  out- 
line," by  saying: 

For  beyond  so  behaving  that  each  achieves  his  ends  without 
preventing  others  from  achieving  their  ends,  the  members  of  a 
society  may  give  mutual  help  in  the  achievement  of  ends.  And 
if  either  indirectly  by  industrial  co-operation  or  directly  by  volun- 
teered aid,  fellow-citizens  can  make  easier  for  one  another  the 
adjustments  of  acts  to  ends,  then  their  conduct  assumes  a  still 
higher  phase  of  evolution ;  since  whatever  facilitates  the  making 
of  adjustments  by  each  increases  the  totality  of  the  adjustments 
made  and  serves  to  render  the  lives  of  all  more  complete. 

Thus  he  stands  to  the  last  by  the  proposition  that  life  is  the 
ultimate  end  of  conduct,  averring  that  this  "  still  higher  phase  of 
evolution  "  of  conduct  *  *  *  serves  to  render  the  Ihes  of  all 
more   complete!' 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  107 

In  §7  of  his  Data  of  Ethics,  Mr.  Spencer  refers  the  reader  back 
to  passages  in  his  earlier  works,  First  Principles,  T^rinciples  of  Biol- 
ogy and  'Principles  of  Ps\)cholog\),  and  quotes  his  former  technical 
definitions  of  life,  viz :  "  The  definite  combination  of  hetero- 
genous changes,  both  simultaneous  and  successive,  in  corres- 
pondence with  external  co-existences  and  sequences,"  and  in 
briefer  phraseology  and  less  specific  formula,  "  the  continuous 
adjustment  of  internal  relations  to  external  relations. "  And  he 
points  out  that  the  difference  between  the  presentation  of  facts 
made  in  those  earlier  works  from  that  here  made  in  his  Data  of 
Ethics,  as  herein  discussed,  consists  mainly  in  "  ignoring  the  inner 
part  of  the  correspondence  and  attending  exclusively  to  that 
outer  part  constituted  of  visible  actions,"  and  recommends  the 
thorough-going  student  to  "  join  to  the  more  special  aspect  of  the 
phenomena  "  herein  considered,  "  the  more  general  aspects  before 
delineated  ' — in  the  above-named  works. 

After  this  introductory  remark,  he  recurs  to  the  main  propo- 
sition which  he  has  been  setting  forth  in  the  first  and  second 
chapters  of  his  Data,  and  begins  with  the  fundamental  proposi- 
tions that  "  as  the  conduct  with  which  Ethics  deals  is  part  of 
conduct  at  large,  conduct  at  large  must  be  generally  understood 
before  this  part  can  be  specially  understood  ;  and  *  *  that 
to  understand  conduct  at  large  we  must  understand  the  evolu- 
tion of  conduct,"  which  leads  to  the  formula  of  the  subject-mat- 
ter of  Ethics,  "  that  form  which  universal  conduct  assumes 
during  the  last  stages  of  its  evolution,"  which  form  of  conduct 
consists  of  the  "  last  stages  of  conduct  displayed  by  the  highest 
type  of  being  [man]  when  he  is  forced  to  live  more  and  more  in 
presence  of  his  fellows,"  from  which  follows  the  corollary  that 
"conduct  gains  ethical  sanction  in  proportion  as  the  activities, 
becoming  less  and  less  militant  and  more  and  more  industrial, 
are  such  as  do  not  necessitate  mutual  injury  or  hindrance,  but 
consist  with  and  are  furthered  by  co-operation  and  mutual  aid." 
And  he  then  proceeds  in  the  succeeding  chapters  to  show  that 
"  these  implications  of  the  Evolution-Hypothesis  *  *  har- 
monize with  the  leading  moral  ideas  men  have  otherwise 
reached." 


108  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

In  Chapter  III  of  the  Da/a  o/ £//j/cs  Mr.  Spencer  enters  upon 
the  elucidation  of  his  propositions  by  clearly  pointing  out  the 
nature  of  good  and  evil  of  "  good  "  and  "  bad  " — as  differences 
not  intrinsically  belonging  to  things  or  actions,  but  as  merely 
relative  aspects,  for  apart  from  human  wants,  he  says,  such 
ttiings  and  actions  have  neither  merit  nor  demerit.  That  is, 
both  the  old  notion  that  there  exists  in  nature — in  matter — an 
intrinsic  character  of  evil  or  badness,  and  the  modern  "  New 
Thought "  dictum  that  "  all  is  good  "  are  erroneous,  for  all  things 
and  all  activities  in  nature  are  good  or  bad  only  in  their  relations 
to  life — specifically  to  human  life.  He  rightly  says  "  we  call 
articles  good  or  bad  according  as  they  are  well  or  ill  adapted  to 
achieve  prescribed  [desired]  ends."  In  the  use  of  these  terms  as 
"characterizing  conduct  under  the  ethical  aspects  *  *  obser- 
vation shows  that  we  apply  them  according  as  the  adjustments 
of  acts  to  ends  are  or  are  not  efficient." 

In  >^8  Mr.  Spencer  says  that  the  discussion  of  any  ethical 
question  must  be  preceded  by  a  definite  answer  to  the  question 
often  asked.  Is  life  worth  living?  If  not,  then  what  we  call  good 
is  not  good  and  what  we  call  evil  is  not  bad.  He  says  that  on 
the  answer  to  this  question  depends  entirely  every  decision  con- 
cerning the  goodness  or  badness  of  conduct.  Those  who  take 
the  pessimistic  view  must  not  blame  but  praise  whatever  causes 
the  ending  of  an  undesirable  existence,  while  "  those  who  take 
the  optimistic  view,  or  who,  if  not  pure  optimists,  yet  hold  that 
in  life  the  good  exceeds  the  evil,  are  committed  to  opposite  esti- 
mates, and  must  regard  as  conduct  to  be  approved  that  which 
fosters  life  in  self  and  others,  and  as  conduct  to  be  disapproved 
that  which  injures  or  endangers  life  in  self  or  others." 

He  regards  the  ultimate  question  herein  involved  to  be : — 
"  Has  evolution  been  a  mistake  ?  and  especially  that  evolution 
which  improves  the  adjustment  of  acts  to  ends  in  ascending 
stages  of  organization?"  Assuming  that  men  are  divisible  into 
two  schools  upon  this  question,  he  asks,  "have  these  irreconcil- 
able opinions  anything  in  common  ?  "  He  answers,  "  Yes,  there 
is  one  postulate  in  which  pessimists  and  optimists  agree.     Both 


THE    ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  109 

their  arguments  assume  it  to  be  self-evident  that  life  is  good  or 
bad  according  as  it  does  or  does  not  bring  a  surplus  of  agreeable 
feelings.  *  *  Each  makes  the  kind  of  sentiency  which  ac- 
companies life  the  test."  And  the  implication  common  to  both 
views  is  that  "  conduct  should  conduce  to  the  preservation  of  the 
life  of  the  individual,  of  the  family,  and  of  society,  only  sup- 
posing that  life  brings  more  happiness  than  misery." 

Spencer  logically  arrives  at  the  conclusion  here  that  "  if  we  call 
good  every  kind  of  conduct  which  aids  the  lives  of  others,  and 
do  this  under  the  belief  that  life  brings  more  happiness  than 
misery ;  then  it  becomes  undeniable  that,  taking  into  account 
immediate  and  remote  effects  on  all  persons,  the  good  is  unvers- 
ally  the  pleasurable."  But  he  falls  short  of  reaching  the  ultimate 
of  his  logical  stepping  because  of  not  apprehending  right  here 
the  demonstrable  fact  that  "  the  pleasurable  "  is  not  the  ultimate 
end  of  conduct  but  a  means  to  that  end,  which,  so  far  as  objective 
observation  can  discern,  is  the  conservation  of  the  life  of  the 
individual  and  of  the  species.  Yet  Mr.  Spencer's  conclusion 
would  be  correct  with  the  qualification  that  the  conscious  end  of 
our  conduct  is  pleasure  or  happiness;  just  as  the  conscious  end 
of  eating  is  the  pleasure  incident  to  the  gratification  of  appetite, 
while  the  unconscious  and  ultimate  end  of  eating  is  to  supply 
material  for  the  maintainance  of  the  integrity  of  the  bodily  tissues 
— a  condition  indispensable  to  the  continuity  of  life. 

Yet  in  §11,  Mr.  Spencer  refers  specifically  to  the  fact  that 
people  do  mistake  the  means  for  the  end;  for  he  says;  'Sundry 
influences — moral,  theological  and  political — conspire  to  make 
people  disguise  from  themselves  this  truth  " — that  is,  that  the 
good  is  universally  the  pleasurable  and  the  ultimate  end  of  con- 
duct.—  "  As  in  narrower  cases,  so  in  this  widest  case,  they 
become  so  pre-occupied  with  the  means  by  which  an  end  is 
achieved  as  eventually  to  mistake  it  for  the  end,"  which  he  illus- 
trates by  referring  to  the  miser  and  his  money.  Then  adds : 
"  Just  as  the  miser,  asked  to  justify  himself,  is  obliged  to  allege 
the  power  of  money  to  purchase  desirable  things  as  his  reason 
for  prizing  it,  so  the  moralist  who  thinks  this  conduct  intrinsic- 


no  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

ally  good  and  that  intrinsically  bad,  if  pushed  home,  has  no 
choice  but  to  fall  back  on  their  pleasure-giving  and  pain-giving 
effects. "  But  1  contend  that  in  this  case  the  moralist  has  not 
really  been  "  pushed  home. "  Push  him  still  further  and  he  will 
be  bound  to  acknowledge  that  the  pleasure-giving  and  the  pain- 
giving  effects  are  themselves  not  ultimate  ends  but  means  to  the 
ultimate  end,  viz :  the  conservation  of  individual  and  race  life. 
The  idea  that  pleasure  or  happiness  is  the  ultimate  end  of  con- 
duct is  the  old  theological  one  upon  which  is  based  the  doctrines 
of  a  future  heaven  and  hell  :  Our  lives  here  are  only  preparatory 
to  future  happiness  or  misery  !  But  to  the  scientist,  nature  pre- 
sents a  stolid,  mechanical  and  unsympathetic  aspect.  Nature 
conducts  life  processes  by  inducing  the  living  being  to  provide 
the  means  upon  which  those  processes  depend.  The  means 
nature  uses  to  induce  this  conduct  are,  in  conscious  beings,  pleas- 
ure or  happiness,  as  enticers,  and  pain  or  misery  as  deterrants. 
Like  a  stern  parent  or  teacher.  Dame  Nature  holds  out  to  us  in 
her  right  hand  the  sugar-plums  of  pleasure  and  happiness  to 
entice  us  to  so  conduct  ourselves  that  our  individual  lives  shall 
be  maintained  and  the  units  of  the  race  reproduced  as  maintain- 
ance  fails ;  and  in  her  left  hand  she  holds  the  rod  of  pain  and 
misery  by  which  she  unmercifully  compels  us  to  avoid  the  things 
and  the  conduct  that  would  minimize  or  destroy  life.  But  this 
stern  mistress  is  not  omniscient — she  makes  mistakes,  from  the 
view-point  of  human  reason.  Some  of  the  things  she  has  or- 
dained to  give  us  immediate  pleasure  lead  us  to  ultimate  ruin. 
Not  all  that's  sweet  is  nutritious,  and  some  sweet  things,  useful 
in  moderation  and  at  proper  times,  are  over-enticing  and  lead  us 
to  untimely  or  over-indulgence  to  our  misery  or  death  ;  the  song 
of  her  Siren  may  lead  us  astray.  A  Christmas  pudding  or  a 
Thanksgiving  dinner  may  prove  to  be  a  means  of  ultimate  disas- 
ter— the  partakers  thanks  may  be  turned  to  wailing  and  his  liv- 
ing body  to  insensate    clay. 

In  treating  of  theories  of  morals,  Mr.  Spencer,  on  page  42  of 
his  Data,  writes  of  the  intuitional  theory  as  follows  : 

By  the  intuitional  theory  1  here  mean,  not  that  which  recog- 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  I  1 1 

nizes  as  produced  by  the  inherited  effects  of  continued  experi- 
ences, the  feelings  of  liking  and  aversion  we  have  to  acts  of 
certain  kinds  ;  but  I  mean  the  theory  which  regards  such  feelings 
as  divinely  given,  and  as  independent  of  results  experienced  by 
self  or  ancestors.  "There  is  therefore,"  says  Hutcheson,  "as 
each  one  by  close  attention  and  reflection  may  convince  himself, 
a  natural  and  immediate  determination  to  approve  certain  affec- 
tions and  actions  consequent  upon  them";  and  since  in  common 
with  others  of  his  time,  he  believes  in  the  special  creation  of  man 
and  all  other  beings,  this  "  natural  sense  of  immediate  excellence  ' 
he  considers  as  a  supernaturally-derived  guide.  Though  he  says 
that  the  feelings  and  acts  thus  intuitively  recognized  as  good, 
"  all  agree  in  one  general  character  of  tending  to  the  happiness 
of  others,"  yet  he  is  obliged  to  conceive  this  a  pre-ordained  cor- 
respondence. Nevertheless,  it  may  be  shown  that  conduciveness 
to  happiness,  here  represented  as  an  incidental  trait  of  the  acts 
which  receive  these  innate  moral  approvals,  is  really  the  test  by 
which  these  approvals  are  recognized  as  moral.  The  intuitionists 
place  confidence  in  these  verdicts  of  conscience  simply  because 
they  vaguely,  if  not  distinctly,  perceive  them  to  be  consonant 
with  the  disclosures  of  that  ultimate  test. 

After  giving  a  number  of  concrete  examples  proving  the  error 
of  the  idea  of  an  innate  moral  sense,  he  adds  : 

The  unavoidable  conclusion  is,  then,  that  the  intuitionist  does 
not,  and  can  not,  ignore  the  ultimate  derivations  of  right  and 
w^rong  from  pleasure  and  pain.  However  much  he  may  be 
guided,  and  rightly  guided,  by  the  decisions  of  conscience  re- 
specting the  character  of  acts,  he  has  come  to  have  confidence  in 
these  decisions  because  he  perceives,  vaguely  but  positively,  that 
conformity  to  them  furthers  the  welfare  of  himself  and  others, 
and  that  disregard  of  them  entails  in  the  long  run  suffering  on 
all.  Require  him  to  name  any  moral-sense  judgment  by  w^hich 
he  knows  as  right  some  kind  of  act  that  will  bring  a  surplus  of 
pain,  taking  into  account  the  totals  in  this  life  and  in  any  as- 
sumed other  life  [after  death],  and  you  find  him  unable  to  name 
one ;  a  fact  proving  that  underneath  all  these  intuitions  respect- 
ing the  goodness  or  badness  of  acts  there  lies  the  fundamental 
assumption  that  acts  are  good  or  bad  according  as  their  aggre- 
gate effects  increase  men's  happiness,  or  increase  their  misery. 

This  quotation  from  Mr.  Spencer  is  here  made  more  complete 
and  at  length  than  usual  in  this  essay,  because  he  therein  treats 


112  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

directly  the  great  question  at  issue  between  the  Rationalists  and 
the  Christian  theologians  ;  that  is,  the  question  stated  in  the  sub- 
heading of  this  little  treatise,  viz  :  "  Were  moral  laws  super- 
naturally  revealed,  or  are  they  products  of  human  experience 
and  evolution  ?  "  (See  title  page.)  And  this  is  the  chief  ques- 
tion to  be  answered  in  this  discussion,  so  that  the  discussion 
embraced  in  the  above  quotations  is  eminently  pertinent. 

Yet,  from  my  point  of  view,  the  author  of  The  T)ata  of  Ethics, 
great  intellect  though  he  was,  failed  to  a  degree  to  arrive  at  the 
complete  conclusion  of  his  reasoning.  Pleasure  and  pain,  hap- 
piness and  misery,  true  enough,  have  been  the  standards  by  which 
emotional  and  comparatively  unreasoning  man  judged  of  the 
right  and  wrong  of  his  acts  and  his  conduct,  just  as  he  has 
judged  of  the  fitness  of  his  food  to  nourish  his  body  by  the  fact 
that  this  or  that  article  was  in  taste  agreeable  or  disagreeable — 
pleasurable  or  not.  But  man,  upon  reaching  a  higher  plane, 
more  and  more  subjects  his  acts  and  conduct  to  his  reason,  and 
allows  his  reason  to  judge  of  the  fitness  of  things  for  food  aside 
from  their  mere  quality  of  pleasurable  taste.  He  asks,  is  it  nec- 
essary, digestible,  assimilable  ?  Does  it  contain  within  its  bulk 
injurious  materials  ?  So  the  reasoning  man  sets  up  a  rational 
standard  of  moral  right  and  wrong  by  his  acquired  greater  power 
of  ratiocination,  and  asks,  will  this  act,  or  this  line  of  conduct, 
result  ultimately  in  the  welfare  of  himself  or  his  fellows,  or  of 
both,  regardless  of  immediate  or  proximate  pleasures  or  pains  ? 
Still,  in  daily  practice,  man  yet  is  bound  by  the  limitations  of  his 
reasoning  power  to  decide  upon  the  moral  right  or  wrong  of 
very  many  of  his  individual  acts,  "  upon  the  spur  of  the  mo- 
ment," by  the  emotional  standard  of  pleasure  or  pain  certain  or 
probable  as  to  results ;  but  as  to  lines  of  conduct,  as  to  conduct 
in  general,  he  is  not  nearly  so  much  restrained  from,  the  use  of 
reason  in  determining  right  from  wrong.  He  may,  and  does,  to 
a  great  degree  and  extent,  use  a  rational  standard  of  moral  judg- 
ment, rather  than  the  more  primitive  emotional  standard,  in  the 
domain  of  general  ethical  conduct.  It  has  been  objected  by  the 
intuitionists  that  man  cannot  deliberate  rationally  upon  each  act 
to  decide    upon  its  utility  or  its  adaptability  to  a  good  end.     So 


THE  ORIGIN  AND  EVOLUTION  OF  ETHICS  113 

far  this  is  true.  But  reason  may  arrive  at  general  principles 
upon  which  general  rules  may  be  formed  as  the  basis  of  sub- 
conscious moral  practices,  just  as,  for  instance,  one  studies  the 
elements  and  rules,  of  arithmetic  or  grammar  and  then  in  com- 
position or  business  speaks  or  writes  correctly  and  arrives  at 
correct  arithmetical  results  without  a  conscious  reflection  upon 
the  elementary  principles  he  had  learned  by  the  exercise  of  his 
reason. 

In  >^  1 6  Mr.  Spencer  makes  a  remark  which  verges  very  closely 
upon  the  theory  of  the  conservation  of  life  as  the  ultimate  end 
of  all  animate  action,  physical,  intellectual  and  moral.  He 
says  "  the  acts  adjusted  to  ends  which,  while  constituting  the 
outer  visible  life  from  moment  to  moment  further  the  continuance 
of  life,"  etc.,  and,  "other  things  equal,  we  call  good  the  acts  that 
are  well  adjusted  for  bringing  up  progeny  capable  of  complete 
living ;  and  other  things  equal,  we  ascribe  goodness  to  acts  which 
further  the  complete  living  of  others."  Note  that  the  words  I  have 
italicized  mean  not  necessarily  pleasure  or  happiness,  but  life — 
the  continuance  and  completeness  of  life — as  the  end  of  moral  acts. 
Mr.  Spencer  formally  holds  to  his  theory  of  happiness  as  the 
ultimate  end,  but  is  led  by  his  own  logic  to  find  the  ultimate  end 
beyond  happiness — which  makes  happiness  or  pleasure  only  a 
proximate  end  or  means  to  the  natural  ultimate  end,  life. 

"  Intelligent  progress,"  says  Mr.  Spencer  in  the  fourth  chapter 
of  his  Data  of  Ethics,  "  is  by  no  one  trait  so  adequately  character- 
ized as  by  development  of  the  idea  of  causation,  since  develop- 
ment of  this  idea  involves  development  of  so  many  other  ideas." 
He  illustrates  the  slow  but  actual  development  of  the  idea  of 
causation  very  clearly  as  follows: 

We  hear  with  surprise  of  the  savage  who,  falling  down  a  prec- 
ipice, ascribes  the  failure  of  his  foothold  to  a  malicious  demon ; 
and  we  smile  at  the  kindred  notion  of  the  ancient  Greek,  that 
his  death  was  prevented  by  a  goddess  who  unfastened  for  him 
the  thong  of  the  helmet  by  which  his  enemy  was  dragging  him. 
But  daily,  without  surprise,  we  hear  of  men  who  describe  them- 
selves as  saved   from   shipwreck  by  "divine  interposition,"  who 


114  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

speak  of  having  "  providentially"  missed  a  train  w^hich  met  w^ith 
a  fatal  disaster,  and  who  call  it  a  "  mercy  "  to  have  escaped  in- 
jury from  a  falling  chimney-pot- men  who,  in  such  cases,  recog- 
nize physical  causation  no  more  than  do  the  uncivilized  or  semi- 
civilized.  The  Veddah  who  thinks  that  failure  to  hit  an  animal 
with  his  arrow  resulted  from  inadequate  invocation  of  an  ances- 
tral spirit,  and  the  Christian  priest  who  says  prayers  over  a  sick 
man  in  the  expectation  that  the  course  of  his  disease  will  so  be 
stayed,  differ  only  in  respect  of  the  phenomena  to  be  altered  by 
him  :  the  necessary  relations  among  causes  and  effects  are  tacitly 
ignored  by  the  last  as  much  as  by  the  first.  Deficient  belief  in 
causation  is,  indeed,  exemplified  even  in  those  whose  discipline 
has  been  specially  fitted  to  generate  this  belief — even  in  men  of 
science.  For  generations  after  geologists  had  become  uniform- 
itarians  in  geology,  they  remained  catastrophists  in  biology : 
while  recognizing  none  but  natural  agencies  in  the  genesis  of  the 
earth's  crust,  they  ascribed  to  supernatural  agency  the  genesis  of 
the  organisms  on  its  surface.  Nay,  more — among  those  who  are 
convinced  that  living  things  in  general  have  been  evolved  by  the 
continual  interaction  of  forces  everywhere  operating,  there  are 
some  v^^ho  make  an  exception  of  man  ;  or  who,  if  they  admit 
that  his  body  has  been  evolved  in  the  same  manner  as  the  bodies 
of  other  creatures,  allege  that  his  mind  has  been  not  evolved  but 
created.  If,  then,  universal  and  necessary  causation  is  only  now 
approaching  full  recognition,  even  by  those  whose  investigations 
are  daily  re-illustrating  it,  we  may  expect  to  find  it  very  little 
recognized  among  men  at  large,  whose  culture  has  not  been  cal- 
culated to  impress  them  with  it ;  and  we  may  expect  to  find  it 
least  recognized  by  them  in  respect  of  those  classes  of  phenom- 
ena amid  which,  in  consequence  of  their  complexity,  causation 
is  most  difficult  to  trace     the  psychical,  the  social,  the  moral. 

Though  this  may  seem  irrelevant  to  the  subject  of  ethics,  it  is 
not  so,  as  Mr.  Spencer  explains,  thus  :  "  Because  on  studying  the 
various  ethical  theories  1  am  struck  with  the  fact  that  they  are 
all  characterized  either  by  entire  absence  of  the  idea  of  causation, 
or  by  inadequate  presence  of  it.  Whether  theological,  political, 
intuitional,  or  utilitarian,  they  all  display,  if  not  in  the  same  de- 
gree, still  each  in  a  large  degree,  the  defects  which  result  from 
this  lack."  Then  he  proceeds  to  criticise  on  this  ground  the 
several  ethical  systems  named.  I  can  here  only  very  briefly  refer 
to  his  chief  points.     He  makes  a  strong  and  just  arraignment  of 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  115 

the  theological,  in  >?  1 8,  as  follows : 

The  school  of  morals  properly  to  be  considered  as  the  still 
extant  representative  of  the  most  ancient  school,  is  that  which 
recognizes  no  other  rule  of  conduct  than  the  alleged  will  of  God. 
It  originates  with  the  savage,  whose  only  restraint,  beyond  fear 
of  his  fellow-man,  is  fear  of  an  ancestral  spirit ;  and  whose  notion 
of  moral  duty,  as  distinguished  from  his  notion  of  social  prudence, 
arises  from  this  fear.  Here  the  ethical  doctrine  and  the  religious 
doctrine  are  identical — have  in  no  degree  differentiated. 

More  specifically,  Mr.  Spencer  then  presents  an  important  his- 
torical fact  with  concrete  examples.  He  truly  says  that  "  this 
primitive  form  of  ethical  doctrine,  changed  only  by  the  gradual 
dying  out  of  multitudinous  minor  supernatural  agents  and 
accompanying  development  of  one  universal  supernatural  agent, 
survives  in  great  strength  down  to  our  own  day."  That  is,  the 
progress  has  been  from  a  belief  in  a  multitude  of  gods — poly- 
theism— to  a  belief  in  one  god  only — monotheism.  Yet  even 
this  later  stage  has  in  reality  been  reached  by  extremely  few  peo- 
ple— even  of  those  who  profess  to  believe  in  the  existence  of 
.but  one  god  ;  for  there  are  few^  who  so  profess  who  do  not  believe 
in  the  existence  of  one  or  more  demi-gods,  or  god-men,  angels, 
saints,  devils,  or  spirits  of  deceased  humans,  which  interpose 
more  or  less  in  the  affairs  of  men.  And  the  only  hope  for  fur- 
ther progress  toward  the  total  elimination  of  supernaturalism  is 
the  evolution  of  the  idea  of  universal  natural  causation  from  the 
one-god  notion  being  transmuted  into  the  idea  of  monism — the 
idea  that  the  cosmos  is  a  solidarity  and  self-operative,  and  that 
the  "  one  god  "  is  but  another  name  for  the  fact  of  the  persist- 
ence of  motion  of  matter  as  the  cause  of  all  phenomena — phys- 
ical, mental  and  moral.  Spencer  says  further  of  this  influence 
of  supernaturalism,  that  "  religious  creeds,  established  and  dis- 
senting, all  embody  the  belief  that  right  and  wrong  are  right  and 
v^^rong  simply  in  virtue  of  divine  enactment.  And  this  tacit 
assumption  has  passed  from  systems  of  theology  into  systems  of 
morality.  *  *  *  We  see  this  in  the  works  of  the  Stoics,  as 
well  as  in  the  works  of  certain  Christian  moralists.  Among 
recent  ones  I  may  instance  the  Essays  on  the  Principles  of  Morality, 


1 1 6  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

by  Jonathan  Dymond,  a  Quaker,  which  makes  'the  authority  of 
the  deity  the  sole  ground  of  duty,  and  his  communicated  will  the 
only  ultimate  standard  of  right  and  wrong."  And  those  sects 
w^hich  take  a  rather  more  philosphical  view,  he  shows  to  be  still 
under  the  spell  of  supernaturalism,  for  "  these  assert  that  in  the 
absence  of  belief  in  deity,  there  would  be  no  moral  guidance, 
and  this  amounts  to  asserting  that  moral  truths  have  no  other 
origin  than  the  will  of  God,  which,  if  not  considered  as  revealed 
in  sacred  writings,  must  be  considered  as  revealed  in  conscience." 

Spencer's  remarks  on  the  ethical  theory  of  law^s  or  political  en- 
actment as  being  the  only  standard  of  right  and  wrong,  I  will  pass 
without  further  note,  though  important  and  well-placed. 

In  §20,  he  comments  upon  "the  pure  intuitionists  who  held 
that  moral  perceptions  are  innate  in  the  original  sense  —thinkers 
whose  view  is  that  men  have  been  divinely  endowed  with  moral 
faculties ;  not  that  these  have  resulted  from  inherited  modifica- 
tions caused  by  accumulated  experiences."  And  he  ends  this 
section  by  this  sound  sentence : 

The  conception  of  natural  causation  is  so  imperfectly  devel- 
oped, that  there  is  only  an  indistinct  consciousness  that  through- 
out the  whole  of  human  conduct  necessary  relations  of  causes 
and  effects  prevail,  and  that  from  them  are  ultimately  derived  all 
moral  rules,  however  much  these  may  be  proximately  derived 
from  moral  intuitions. 

That  is,  intuition  itself  is  a  subconscious  product  of  accumu- 
lated and  inherited  human  experience,  and  so  what  we  derive 
from  it  is  as  only  from  a  proximate  source,  the  ultimate  source 
being  the  source  of  the  intuition — inherited  experience. 

Mr.  Spencer  criticises  the  utilitarian  school  as  being  very  far 
from  the  complete  recognition  of  natural  causation.  This  criti- 
cism, 1  admit,  is  partially  to  the  point  and  just ;  but  it  does  not 
apply  to  all  Utilitarians,  nor  to  all  phases  of  the  utilitarian  theory 
of  ethics.  For  as  I  conceive,  and  as  some  others  have  done  and 
do,  utility  itself  is  dependent  upon  this  uniform  relation  of  effect 
to  cause;  and  we  fully  recognize  the  fact  that  all  moral  rules  have 
their  origin  in  natural  causes  and  nowhere  else. 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  1  I  7 

Herbert  Spencer,  upon  reaching  the  main  portion  of  his  essay 
on  the  Data  of  Ethics,  after  closing  his  lengthy  introductory  dis- 
cussion as  hereinbefore  summarized,  takes  up  in  succession  the 
four  principal  views,  of  the  subject,  viz  :  the  physical,  the  biolog- 
ical, the  psychological,  and  the  sociological. 

In  writing  of  the  physical  view  (ch.  V ),  Mr.  Spencer  begins 
by  saying  that  "  thoughts  and  feelings  are  referred  to  when  we 
speak  of  anyone's  deeds  with  praise  or  blame ;  not  those  outer 
manifestations  which  reveal  the  thoughts  and  feelings.  Hence 
we  become  oblivious  of  the  truth  that  conduct  as  actually  experi- 
enced consists  of  changes  recognized  by  touch,  sight  and  hear- 
ing,"  and  that  "  this  habit  of  contemplating  only  the  psychical 
face  of  conduct  is  so  confirmed  that  an  effort  is  required  to  con- 
template only  the  physical  face."  Approaching  the  question  of 
the  physical  view  of  moral  phenomena,  he  says  :  "  Taking  the 
evolution  point  of  view,  and  remembering  that  while  an  aggre- 
gate evolves,  not  only  the  matter  composing  it,  but  also  the  motion 
of  that  matter,  passes  from  an  indefinite  coherent  heterogeneity, 
we  have  now  to  ask  whether  conduct  as  it  rises  to  its  higher 
forms  displays  and  in  increasing  degrees  these  characters  ;  and 
whether  it  does  not  display  them  in  the  greatest  degree  when  it 
reaches  that  highest  form  which  we  call  moral." 

He  then  proceeds  to  illustrate  the  principle  of  increasing  coher- 
ence by  citing  the  evolution  of  physical  movements  of  living 
beings  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  in  the  biological  scale, 
saying,  first,  that  the  conduct  of  the  lower  organizations  is  in 
broad  contrast  with  that  of  highly  organized  beings  in  having  its 
successive  portions  feebly  connected,  as  illustrated  thus  : 

The  random  movements  which  an  animalcule  makes  have 
severally  no  reference  to  movements  made  a  moment  before  ; 
nor  do  they  affect  in  specific  ways  the  movements  immediately 
after.  Today's  wanderings  of  a  hsh  in  search  of  food,  though 
perhaps  showing  by  their  adjustments  to  catching  different  kinds 
of  prey  at  different  hours  a  slightly  determined  order,  are  unre- 
lated to  the  wanderings  of  yesterday  and  tomorrow.  But  such 
more-developed  creatures  as   birds   show  us  in  the  building  of 


I  18  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

nests,  the  sitting  on  eggs,  the  rearing  of  chicks,  and  the  aiding  of 
them  after  they  fly,  sets  of  motion  which  form  a  dependent  series 
extending  over  a  considerable  period.  And  in  observing  the 
complexity  of  the  acts  performed  m  fetching  and  fixing  the  fibres 
of  the  nest,  or  in  catching  and  bringing  to  the  young  each  portion 
of  food,  we  discover  in  the  combined  motions  lateral  cohesion  as 
well  as  longitudinal  cohesion.  Man,  even  in  his  lowest  state, 
displays  in  his  conduct  far  more  coherent  combinations  of  mo- 
tions. By  the  elaborate  manipulations  gone  through  in  making 
weapons  that  are  to  serve  for  the  chase  next  year,  or  in  building 
canoes  and  wigwams  for  permanent  uses — by  acts  of  aggression 
and  defense  which  are  connected  with  injuries  long  since  received 
or  committed,  the  savage  exhibits  an  aggregate  of  motions  which, 
in  some  of  its  parts,  holds  together  over  great  periods.  More- 
over, if  we  consider  the  many  movements  implied  by  the  trans- 
actions of  each  day,  in  the  wood  on  the  water,  in  the  camp,  in 
the  family,  we  see  that  this  coherent  aggregate  of  movements  is 
composed  of  many  minor  aggregates  that  are  severally  coherent 
within  themselves  and  with  one  another.  In  civilized  man  this 
trait  of  developed  conduct  becomes  more  conspicuous  still. 

And  this  increased  coherence  of  conduct  among  the  civil- 
ized will  strike  us  even  more  when  we  remember  how  its  parts 
are  often  continued  in  a  connected  arrangement  through  life,  for 
the  purpose  of  making  a  fortune,  founding  a  family,  gaining  a 
seat  in  Parliament. 

Then  Mr.  Spencer  calls  special  attention  to  the  fact  that  "a 
greater  coherence  among  its  component  motions  broadly  distin- 
guishes the  conduct  we  call  moral  from  the  conduct  we  call 
immoral,"  and  he  then  says  rightly  that  "  in  proportion  as  the 
conduct  is  what  we  call  moral,  it  exhibits  comparatively  settled 
connections  between  antecedents  and  consequents  ;  for  the  doing 
right  implies  that  under  given  conditions  the  combined  motions 
constituting  conduct  will  follow  in  a  way  that  can  be  specified. 
Contrariwise,  in  the  conduct  of  one  whose  principles  are  not 
high,  the  sequences  of  motions  are  doubtful." 

In  §27,  he  extends  his  remarks  to  the  illustration  of  the  lack 
of  coherence,  that  is,  incoherence ;  that  sequence  of  acts  which 
forms  a  line  of  conduct ;  and  he  begins  by  saying  that  "  indefi- 
niteness  accompanies  incoherence  in  conduct  that  is  little  evolved  ; 
and    throughout  the  ascending  stages  of   evolving  conduct  there 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  119 

is  an  increasingly  definite  co-ordination  of  the  motions  constitut- 
ing it."     To  illustrate  this  principle,  he  cites  examples,  thus  : 

Such  changes  of  form  as  the  rudest  protozoa  show  us,  are 
utterly  vague — admit  of  no  precise  description ;  and  though  in 
higher  kinds  the  movements  of  the  parts  are  more  definable,  yet 
the  movement  of  the  whole  in  respect  of  direction  is  indetermin- 
ate— there  is  no  adjustment  of  it  to  this  or  the  other  point  in 
space.  In  such  coelenterate  animals  as  polypes  we  see  the  parts 
moving  in  ways  which  lack  precision  ;  and  in  one  of  the  loco- 
motive forms,  as  a  medusa,  the  course  taken,  otherwise  at  ran- 
dom, can  be  described  only  as  one  which  carries  it  toward  the 
light,  where  degrees  of  light  and  darkness  are  present.  Among 
annulose  creatures,  the  contrast  between  the  track  of  a  w^orm, 
turning  this  way  or  that  at  hazard,  and  the  definite  course  taken 
by  a  bee  in  its  flight  from  flower  to  flower  or  back  to  the  hive, 
shows  us  the  same  thing ;  the  bee's  acts  in  building  cells  and 
feeding  larvae  further  exhibiting  precision  in  the  simultaneous 
movements  as  well  as  in  the  successive  movements.  Though 
the  movements  made  by  a  fish  in  pursuing  its  prey  have  consid- 
erable definiteness,  yet  they  are  of  a  simple  kind,  and  are  in  this 
respect  contrasted  with  the  many  definite  motions  of  body,  head 
and  limbs  gone  through  by  a  carnivorous  mammal  in  the  course 
of  waylaying,  running  down  and  seizing  a  herbivore ;  and,  fur- 
ther, the  fish  shows  us  none  of  those  definitely-adjusted  sets  of 
motions  which  in  the  mammal  subserve  the  rearing  of  the  young. 
Much  greater  definiteness,  if  not  in  the  combined  movements 
forming  single  acts,  still  in  the  adjustments  of  many  combined 
acts  to  various  purposes,  characterizes  human  conduct,  even  in 
its  lowest  stages.  In  making  and  using  weapons,  and  in  the 
manoeuverings  of  savage  warfare,  numerous  movements,  all  pre- 
cise in  their  adaptations  to  proximate  ends,  are  arranged  for  the 
achievement  of  remote  ends  with  a  precision  not  paralleled  among 
ower  creatures.  The  lives  of  civilized  men  exhibit  this  trait  far 
more  conspicuously.  Each  industrial  art  exemplifies  the  effects 
of  movements  which  are  severally  definite,  and  which  are  defi- 
nitely arranged  in  simultaneous  and  successive  order.  Business 
transactions  of  every  kind  are  characterized  by  exact  relations 
between   the  sets  of  motions  constituting  acts,  and  the  purposes 

fulfilled,  in  time,  place  and  quantity Moral  conduct 

differs  from  immoral  conduct  in  the  same  manner  and  in  a  like 
degree.  The  conscientious  man  is  exact  in  all  his  transactions. 
He   supplies  a  precise  weight   for  a   specified   sum ;  he   gives   a 


120  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

definite  quantity  in  fulfillment  of  understanding ;  he  pays  the 
full  amount  he  bargained  to  do.  In  times  as  well  as  in  quan- 
tities, his  acts  answer  completely  to  anticipations.  If  he  has 
made  a  business  contract,  he  is  to  the  day ;  if  an  appointment, 
he  is  to  the  minute.  Similarly  in  respect  of  truth  ;  his  statements 
correspond  accurately  with  the  facts.  It  is  thus  too  in  his  family 
life.  He  maintains  marital  relations  that  are  definite  in  contrast 
with  the  relations  that  result  from  the  breach  of  the  marriage 
contract ;  and  as  a  father,  fitting  his  behavior  with  care  to  the 
nature  of  each  child  and  to  the  occasion,  he  avoids  the  too  much 
and  the  too  little  of  praise  or  blame,  reward  or  penalty.  Nor  is 
it  otherwise  in  his  miscellaneous  acts. 

This  is  sound  doctrine  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  evolutionist, 
except  in  a  remarkable  instance  exhibited  in  Mr.  Spencer's  re- 
marks about  the  movements  of  the  protozoa  being  "  utterly 
vague"  and  "indeterminate."  The  remarkable  thing  about  this 
statement  is  that  such  a  master  intellect  as  that  of  Herbert  Spen- 
cer should  be  so  much  clouded  by  earlier  teachings  and  beliefs 
as  not  to  be  able  to  see  that  all  movements  of  everything  are  de- 
termined by  environment,  past  and  present.  He  seems  to  utterly 
fail  to  distinguish  between  the  determination  of  motion  directly 
by  the  environment,  as  in  cases  of  non-sentient  things  and  the 
lower  forms  of  living  creatures  that  he  refers  to,  and  the  deter- 
mination of  motion  indirectly  by  the  environment  first  determining 
the  "  will "  of  the  creature  to  act  in  this  or  that  manner.  Take 
his  illustrations :  The  creeping  worm  passes  this  way  or  that  in 
its  movements  as  determined  by  obstructions  in  its  path,  in  front, 
to  the  right  or  to  the  left ;  yet  it  moves  forward  by  an  impulse  of 
"  will "  determined  by  the  desire  for  food  or  the  accomplishment 
of  some  other  end  necessary  to  the  perpetuation  of  its  life  or  the 
procreation  of  its  kind.  The  bee  moves  in  a  straight  line  back 
to  its  hive  determined  in  the  very  same  way.  Its  "  will  "  to  go  to 
the  hive  is  determined  by  the  desire  to  store  its  collection  of  pol- 
len or  nectar.  Obstructions  to  a  straight  forward  movement  in 
the  air  are  very  much  less  frequent  than  upon  the  ground.  Yet 
the  bee  will  cross  a  range  of  hills  over  a  low  pass  and  make  an 
an  angle  out  of  its  direct  course  to  the  hive  to  avoid  the   higher 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  121 

portions  of  the  range  which  obstruct  its  straight  course.  Its 
crooked  course  is  determined  exactly  as  is  that  of  the  worm,  ex- 
cept that  in  the  one  case  the  medium  of  contact  is  closer  and  in 
the  other  more  distant ;  the  sense  of  louch  in  the  one,  the  medium 
of  light  and  sight,  in  the  other,  through  which  the  "  will  "  to  vary 
the  course  is  determined.  In  the  simpler  forms  of  life  the  influ- 
ence of  environment  is  more  direct  and  simple  ;  in  the  more 
complex  forms  of  life,  the  influence  of  the  environment  is  less 
direct — passes  through  various  mediums — and  is  more  compli- 
cated in  its  relations,  so  that  the  mind  of  man  not  being  able  to 
see  and  co-ordinate  all  of  these  relations,  "  follows  the  lines  of  least 
resistance"  in  its  ratiocination  and  concludes  that  an  inderter- 
mined  will  is  the  cause  of  the  movements  to  definite  ends.  And 
this  principle  is  just  as  much  inherent  in  morals  as  in  intellectual 
mentation,  physiological  functioning  or  physical  movement  of 
insensate  bodies.  Late — that  is,  the  principle  that  matter  moves 
always  in  the  same  manner  in  the  same  environment — is  abso- 
lutely immutable,  and  this  is  the  basis  of  modern  science  and 
the  only  stable  groundwork  for  any  valuable,  lasting  and  logical 
system  of  philosophy,  physical,  mental  or  moral.  It  is  remark- 
able, then,  that  the  trained  intellect  of  a  Herbert  Spencer  should 
indite  such  words  as  "  at  random,"  and  "  at  hcizard,"  in  describ- 
ing any  kmd  of  motion. 

Speaking  of  the  increasing  contrast  between  the  immoral  and 
the  moral  as  we  ascend  in  the  scale  from  the  savage  to  the  highly- 
civilized  man,  Mr.  Spencer  says  that  "  instead  of  recognizing  this 
contrast,  most  readers  will  be  inclined  to  identify  a  moral  life 
with  a  life  little  varied  in  its  activities.  But  here  we  come  upon 
a  defect  in  the  current  conception  of  morality.  This  compara- 
tive uniformity  in  the  aggregate  of  motions  which  goes  along 
with  morality  as  commonly  conceived,  is  not  only  not  moral,  but 
is  the  reverse  of  moral.  The  better  a  man  fulfills  every  require- 
ment of  life,  alike  as  regards  his  own  body  and  mind,  as  regards 
the  bodies  and  minds  of  those  dependent  on  him,  and  as  regards 
the  bodies  and  minds  of  his  fellow  citizens,  the  more  varied  do 
his  activities  become.     The  more  fully  he  does  all  these  things. 


122  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

the  more  heterogeneous  must  be  his  movements."  And  in  this 
statement,  it  seems  to  me,  he  makes  a  clear  statement  of  an  im- 
portant truth  not  generally  recognized. 

In  §29,  Spencer  opens  his  further  discussion  of  the  physical 
view,  by  saying,  truly,  I  think,  that  "  evolution  in  conduct  con- 
sidered under  its  moral  aspect,  is,  like  all  other  evolution,  toward 
equilibrium.  1  do  not  mean  that  it  is  toward  the  equilibrium 
reached  at  death,  though  this  is,  of  course,  the  final  state  which 
the  evolution  of  the  highest  man  has  in  common  with  all  lower 
evolution  ;  but  1  mean  that  it  is  toward  a  moving  equilibrium," 
and  he  concludes  that  "  the  life  called  moral  is  one  in  which  the 
maintenance  of  the  moving  equilibrium  reaches  completeness,  or 
approaches  most  nearly  to  completeness." 

Another  very  important  principle  is  in  this  connection  enun- 
ciated by  Spencer  in  these  words :  "  The  man  who  .... 
reaches  the  limit  of  evolution,  exists  in  a  society  congruous  with 
his  nature — is  a  man  among  men  similarly  constituted,  who  are 
severally  in  harmony  with  that  social  environment  which  they 
have  formed.  .  .  .  For  the  production  of  the  highest  type 
of  man  can  go  on  only  pari  passu  with  the  evolution  of  the  highest 
type  of  society.  .  .  .  Complete  life  in  a  complete  society  is 
but  another  name  for  complete  equilibrium  between  the  co-ordi- 
nated activities  of  each  social  unit  and  those  of  the  aggregate 
units." 

Concluding  his  discussion  of  the  physical  view,  Spencer  says 
that  to  most  readers  of  his  Data  and  preceding  works,  "  there 
will  seem  a  strangeness,  or  even  an  absurdity,  in  this  presenta- 
tion of  moral  conduct  in  physical  terms,"  but  that  it  has  been 
needful  to  make  it,  for,  "  if  that  re-distribution  of  matter  and 
motion  constituting  evolution  goes  on  in  all  aggregates,  its  laws 
must  be  fulfilled  in  the  most  developed  being  as  in  every  other 
thing ;  and  his  action  when  decomposed  into  motions,  must  ex- 
emplify its  laws There  is  an  entire  correspondence 

between  moral  evolution  and  evolution  as  physically  defined." 
He  says  that  on  ascending  through  the  various  grades  of  animate 
beings,   the  combined   motions   are  characterized    by  increasing 


THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  123 

coherence,  and  definiteness  considered  singly  and  in  their  co-or- 
dinated groups,  and  increasing  heterogeneity,  becoming  more 
marked  still  as  we  ascend  in  the  scale  to  highly-civilized  and 
moral  man  ;  and  that  "  this  increasing  cohesion,  definiteness  and 
heterogeneity  of  the  combined  motions  ...  in  the  human 
race  at  large  is  comparatively  regular  and  enduring ;  and  its 
regularity  and  enduringness  are  greatest  in  the  highest. " 

The  second  part  of  Mr.  Spencer's  classification  of  the  aspects 
of  ethics  he  treats  of  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  his  Data  of  Ethics, 
under  the  heading,  "The  Biological  View."  He  begins  by  say- 
ing that  the  ideally  moral  man  being  one  in  whom  "  the  moving 
equilibrium  is  perfect,  or  approaches  nearest  to  perfection,  it  is 
true,  speaking  physiologically,  that  "  he  is  one  in  whom  the 
functions  of  all  kinds  are  duly  fulfilled."  He  says  that  "  each 
function  has  some  relation  to  the  needs  of  life,"  and  that  "  the 
fact  of  its  existence  as  a  result  of  evolution,  being  itself  a  proof 
that  it  has  been  entailed,  immediately  or  remotely,  by  the  adjust- 
ment of  inner  actions  to  outer  actions.  Consequently,  non-ful- 
fillment of  it  in  normal  proportions  is  non-fulfillment  of  a  requi- 
site to  complete  life.  If  there  is  defective  discharge  of  the  func- 
tion the  organism  experiences  some  detrimental  result  caused 
by  the  inadequacy.  If  the  discharge  is  in  excess,  there  is  entailed 
a  reaction  upon  the  other  functions  which  in  some  way  dimin- 
ishes their  efficiency." 

Coming  directly  to  the  moral  aspect  of  this  principle,  he  con- 
cludes that  "  the  moral  man  is  one  whose  functions  are  all  dis- 
charged in  degrees  duly  adjusted  to  the  conditions  of  existence." 
And  he  extends  this  conclusion  by  at  some  length  laying  down 
and  illustrating  the  proposition  that  "  the  performance  of  every 
function  is,  in  a  sense,  a  moral  obligation." 

He  sets  a  higher  standard  for  morals  than  that  generally 
accepted,  in  this  relation,  when  he  declares  that,  instead  of  mor- 
ality requiring  only  a  restraint  of  such  vital  activities  as  are  often 
pushed  to  excess,  or  such  as  conflict  with  average  welfare,  "  it 
also  requires  us  to  carry  on  these  vital  activities  up  to  their  nor- 
mal limits."     And    he  means   by   this  to  include  all  the  merely 


124  THE  ORIGIN    AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

vegetal  or  physiological  functions  proper,  but  also  the  higher 
functions  of  the  cerebrum  the  intellect,  and  sentiments  or  emo- 
tions. He  says  that,  recognizing  the  fact  that  in  the  present  state 
of  man,  in  which  his  constitution  is  imperfectly  adapted  to  his 
environment,  "  moral  obligations  of  supreme  kinds  often  necessi- 
tate conduct  which  is  physically  injurious,"  and  that  "  we  must 
recognize  the  fact  that,  considered  apart  from  other  effects,  it  is 
immoral  to  treat  the  body  as  in  any  way  to  diminish  the  fullness 
or  vigor  of  its  vitality.''  These  two  propositions  at  first  view 
seem  to  contradict  each  other,  but  he  makes  their  agreement 
more  apparent  in  explaining  a  "  test  of  actions,"  as  he  calls  it,  as 
follows  : 

There  may  in  every  case  be  put  the  questions :  Does  the 
action  tend  to  maintenance  of  complete  life  for  the  time  being ; 
and  does  it  tend  to  prolongation  of  life  to  its  full  extent  ?  To 
answer  Yes  or  No  to  either  of  these  questions,  is  implicitly  to 
class  the  action  as  right  or  wrong  in  respect  of  its  immediate 
bearings,  whatever  it  may  be  in  respect  of  its  remote  bearings. 
The  seeming  paradoxicalness  of  this  statement  results  from  the 
tendency,  so  difficult  of  avoidance,  to  judge  a  conclusion  which 
presupposes  an  ideal  humanity  as  now  existing.  The  foregoing 
conclusion  refers  to  that  highest  conduct  in  which  the  evolution 
of  conduct  terminates — that  conduct  m  which  the  making  of  all 
adjustments  of  acts  to  ends  subserving  complete  individual  life, 
together  with  all  those  subserving  maintenance  of  offspring  and 
preparation  of  them  for  maturity,  is  not  only  consistent  with  the 
making  of  like  adjustment  by  others,  but  furthers  it.  And  this 
conception  of  conduct  in  its  ultimate  form  implies  the  conception 
of  a  nature  having  such  conduct  for  its  spontaneous  outcome  — 
the  product  of  its  normal  activities.  So,  understanding  the  mat- 
ter, it  becomes  manifest  that  under  such  conditions  any  falling- 
short  of  function,  as  well  as  any  e.xcess  of  function,  implies  devi- 
ation from  the  best  conduct  or  from  perfectly  moral  conduct. 

Then  coming  from  this  exclusively  physiological  aspect  of  the 
biological  view  to  a  consideration  of  the  psychological  aspect  in 
the  biological  view,  in  ^34,  he  refers  back  to  his  former  work. 
Principles  of  Psychologv,  ^  I  24.  where,  he  says,  "  it  was  shown  that 
necessarily,  throughout  the  animate  world  at  large,  '  pains  are  the 
correlatives  of  actions  injurious  to  the  organism,  while  pleasures 


THE  ORIGIN  AND  EVOLUTION   OF  ETHICS  125 

are  the  correlatives  of  actions  conducive  to  its  welfare ' ;  since  '  it 
is  an  inevitable  deduction  from  the  hypothesis  of  evolution,  that 
races  of  sentient  creatures  could  have  come  into  existence  under 
no  other  conditions.'  .  .  .  Fit  conditions  between  acts  and 
results  must  establish  themselves  in  living  things,  even  before 
consciousness ;  and  after  the  rise  of  consciousness  these  connec- 
tions can  change  in  no  other  way  than  to  become  better  estab- 
lished." 

Spencer  then  illustrates  his  principles  here  enunciated  by  quite 
full  citations  to  several  stages  of  life-development  from  the  lowest 
in  the  biological  scale  to  and  including  man.  Then  he  says  he 
arrives  at  this  corollary  :  "  As  fast  as  an  accompanying  sen- 
tiency  arises,  this  [stimulus]  cannot  be  one  that  is  disagreeable, 
prompting  desistance,  but  must  be  one  that  is  agreeable,  prompt- 
ing persistence.  The  pleasurable  sensation  must  be  of  itself  the 
stimulus  to  the  contraction  by  which  the  pleasurable  sensation 
is  maintained  and  increased  ;  or  must  be  so  bound  up  with  the 
stimulus  that  the  two  increase  together.  .  .  .  There  exists 
[then],  a  primordial  connection  between  pleasure-giving  acts  and 
continuance  or  increase  of  life,  and,  by  implication,  between  pain- 
giving  acts  and  decrease   or   loss  of    life. " 

Thus  he  recognizes  the  general  law  1  have  all  along  kept  in 
view  in  this  discussion,  that  all  right  acts  of  living  beings,  physi- 
ological, mental  or  moral,  have  for  their  proximate  end,  pleasure 
or  happiness ;  but  for  their  ultimate  end,  the  preservation  of  life — 
the  persistence  of  the  individual  or  of  the  species.  This,  in  con- 
tradistinction from  the  world-wide  and  time-honored  doctrine 
that  happiness  was  the  chief  good,"  the  Summum  Bonum,  the 
ultimate  end,  of  human  activity. 

Mr.  Spencer,  in  §40,  sums  up  in  the  initial  paragraph  what 
he  had  before  said  of  the  biological  view  in  a  few  brief  words, 
thus  :  "  Like  the  physical,  the  biological  view  corresponds  with 
the  view  gained  by  looking  at  conduct  in  general  from  the  stand- 
point of  evolution."  And  then,  further  along,  he  adds :  "  So 
that  from  the  biological  point  of  view,  ethical  science  becomes  a 


126  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

specification  of  the  conduct  of  associated  men  who  are  severally 
so  constituted  that  the  various  self-preserving  activities — the 
activities  required  for  rearing  offspring  and  those  which  social 
welfare  demands,  are  fulfilled  in  the  spontaneous  exercise  of 
duly-proportioned  faculties,  each  yielding  when  in  action  its 
quantum  of  pleasure,  and  who  are,  by  consequence,  so  consti- 
tuted that  excess  or  defect  in  any  one  of  these  actions  brings  its 
quantum  of  pain,  immediate  and  remote." 

In  the  seventh  chapter  of  his  Data  of  Ethics,  Mr.  Spencer  treats 
of  the  psychological  view,  beginning  in  {^41,  in  which  he  intro- 
duces his  discussion  by  this  remark  :  "  In  this  chapter  we  are 
not  concerned  with  the  constitutional  connections  between  feel- 
ings, as  incentives  or  deterrents,  and  physical  benefits  to  be 
gained  or  mischiefs  to  be  avoided ;  nor  with  the  reactive  effects 
of  feelings  on  the  state  of  the  organism,  as  fitting  or  unfitting  it 
for  future  action.  Here  we  have  to  consider  represented  pleas- 
ures and  pains,  sensational  and  emotional,  as  constituting  delib- 
erate motives — as  forming  factors  in  the  conscious  adjustments 
of  acts  to  ends." 

He  then  takes  a  broad  view  of  psychological  evolution  before 
entering  upon  the  discussion  of  the  motives  and  actions  that  are 
classed  as  moral  and  immoral,  which  he  does  at  some  length  in 
5^43,  supplemented  m  following  sections. 

In  ^47  he  answers  the  questions,  "  How  does  there  arise  the 
feeling  of  moral  obligation  in  general  ?  Whence  comes  the  sen- 
timent of  duty,  considered  as  distinct  from  the  several  sentiments 
which  prompt  temperance,  providence,  kindness,  justice,  truthful- 
ness, etc.,  by  saying  that  "  it  is  an  abstract  sentiment  generated 
in  a  manner  analogous  to  that  in  which  abstract  ideas  are  gen- 
erated." And  after  discussing  these  corolleries  to  near  the  end 
of  the  chapter,  he  arrives  at  the  psychological  aspect  of  the  con- 
clusion he  arrived  at  under  its  biological  aspect,  and  ends  by 
saying  that  "  the  pleasures  and  pains  which  the  moral  sentiments 
originate,  will,  like  bodily  pleasures  and  pains,  become  incentives 
and  deterrents  so  adjusted  in  their  strengths  to  the  needs  that 
the  moral  conduct  will  be  the  natural  conduct. ' 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  127 

The  sociological  view  is  given  all  of  the  tw^enty  pages  of  Chap- 
ter VII 1.  I  can  here  refer  to  only  a  few^  of  the  chief  points  in  the 
treatment.  Spencer  opens  this  discussion  by  affirming  that  for 
every  race  of  living  beings,  including  the  human,  "  there  are  lav^^s 
of  right  living. "  To  this  he  adds  that  "  given  its  environment 
and  its  structure,  and  there  is  for  each  kind  of  creature  a  set  of 
actions  adapted  to  their  kinds,  amounts  and  combinations,  to 
secure  the  highest  conservation  its  nature  permits." 

He  lays  down  this  principle  as  fundamental,  that  from  the 
sociological  point  of  view,  "  Ethics  becomes  nothing  else  than  a 
definite  account  of  the  forms  of  conduct  that  are  fitted  to  the 
associated  state,  in  such  wise  that  the  lives  of  each  and  all  may 
be  the  greatest  possible,  alike  in  length  and  breadth."  But  he 
immediately  adds  to  this  statement  of  the  principle,  "  But  here 
we  are  met  by  a  fact  which  forbids  us  thus  to  put  in  the  fore- 
ground the  welfare  of  citizens,  individually  considered,  and 
requires  us  to  put  in  the  foreground  the  welfare  of  the  society 
as  a  whole.  The  life  of  the  social  organism  must,  as  an  end, 
rank  above  the  lives  of  its  units." 

He  notes  that  these  two  ends  are  not  entirely  harmonious,  but 
that  the  tendency  is  toward  their  harmonization.  This,  1  take 
it,  is  the  ground  upon  which  all  government — political  law — is 
based,  and  upon  which  good  government  by  the  state  institution 
is  justifiable  and  beneficent. 

In  §56  Spencer  sums  up  what  he  has  said  of  the  sociological 
view  in  these  pertinent  words :  "  Thus  the  sociological  view  of 
ethics  supplements  the  physical,  the  biological,  and  the  psycho- 
logical views,  by  disclosing  those  conditions  under  which  only 
associated  activities  can  be  so  carried  on  that  the  complete  living 
of  each  consists  with  and  conduces  to  the  complete  living  of  all." 
And  then  after  amplifying  this  somewhat,  he  closes  the  chapter 
by  summarizing  the  principles  of  a  code  of  sociological  conduct 
in  a  brief  paragraph,  as  follows  : 

The  leading  traits  of  a  code,  under  which  complete  living 
through  voluntary  co-operation  is  secured,  may  be  simply  stated  : 
The  fundamental  requirement  is  that  the  life-sustaining  actions 


128  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

of  each  shall  severally  bring  him  the  amounts  and  kinds  of 
advantage  naturally  achieved  by  them  ;  and  this  implies,  firstly, 
that  he  shall  suffer  no  direct  aggressions  on  his  person  or  prop- 
erty, and,  secondly,  that  he  shall  suffer  no  direct  aggressions  by 
breach  of  contract.  Observance  of  these  negative  conditions  to 
voluntary  co-operation  having  facilitated  life  to  the  greatest  ex- 
tent by  exchange  of  services  under  agreement,  life  is  to  be  fur- 
ther facilitated  by  exchange  of  services  be3ond  agreement ;  the 
highest  life  being  reached  only  v^hen,  beside  helping  to  complete 
one  another's  lives  by  specified  reciprocities  of  aid,  men  other- 
wise help  to  complete  one  another's  lives. 

In  the  ninth  chapter  of  the  Data  the  author  offers  some  criti- 
cisms and  explanations,  which  1  have  not  space  here  to  even 
summarize ;  but  in  §63,  he  refers  to  the  theological  theory  in  a 
way  that  I  cannot  pass  over  without  a  brief  quotation.  Spencer 
says  that  "  thus  observing  how  means  and  ends  in  conduct  stand 
to  one  another,  and  how  there  emerge  certain  conclusions  re- 
specting their  relative  claims,  we  may  see  a  way  to  reconcile 
sundry  conflicting  ethical  theories.  These  severally  embody 
portions  of  the  trutti,  and  simply  require  combining  in  proper 
order  to  embody  the  whole  truth,"  and  then  he  proceeds: 

The  theological  theory  contains  a  part.  If  for  the  divine  will, 
supposed  to  be  supernaturally  revealed,  we  substitute  the  natur- 
ally revealed  end  toward  which  the  Power  manifested  throughout 
Evolution  works,  then,  since  Evolution  has  been,  and  is  still, 
working  toward  the  highest  life,  it  follows  that  conforming  to 
those  principles  by  which  the  highest  life  is  achieved,  is  further- 
ing that  end.  The  doctrine  that  perfection  or  excellency  of 
nature  should  be  the  object  of  pursuit,  is  in  one  sense  true;  for 
it  tacitly  recognizes  that  ideal  form  of  being  which  the  highest 
life  implies,  and  to  which  Evolution  tends.  There  is  a  truth, 
also,  in  the  doctrine  that  virtue  must  be  the  aim ;  for  this  is 
another  form  of  the  doctrine  that  the  aim  must  be  to  fulfill  the 
conditions  of  achievement  of  the  highest  life.  That  the  intuitions 
of  a  moral  faculty  shall  guide  or  conduct,  is  a  proposition  in 
which  a  truth  is  contained  ;  for  these  intuitions  are  the  slowly, 
organized  results  of  experiences  received  by  the  race  while  living 
in  presence  of  these  conditions.  And  that  happiness  is  the 
supreme  end  is  beyond  question  true  ;  for  this  is  the  concomitant 
of   the    highest   life  which    every  theory  of  moral  guidance  has 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  129 

distinctly  or  vaguely  in  view.  So  understanding  their  relative 
positions,  those  ethical  systems  which  make  virtue,  right,  obli- 
gation, the  cardinal  aims,  are  seen  to  be  complementary  to  those 
ethical  systems  which  make  welfare,  pleasure,  happiness,  the 
cardinal  aims. 

Why  anything  referred  to  in  the  above  quotation  should  be 
called  "  theological  theory,"  Mr.  Spencer  does  not  say,  and  I  can 
not  see.  For  the  moment  he  begins  to  state  the  first  theory  he 
immediately  lifts  it  out  of  the  domain  of  theology  by  saying,  "  if 
for  the  divine  will,  supposed  to  be  supernaturally  revealed,  we 
substitute  the  naturally-revealed  end  toward  which  the  Power  mani- 
fested throughout  Evolution  works,"  etc.  This  substitution  is 
plainly  a  rejection  of  the  "  theological  theory,"  and  an  adoption 
or  substitution  of  the  evolution  theory.  Again  when  Mr.  Spencer 
says  "  that  happiness  is  the  supreme  end  is  beyond  question 
true,"  he  is  assuming  entirely  too  much.  For  one,  I  do  not  accept 
it  as  true.  With  the  insertion  of  one  word  in  the  clause  it  is 
true  ;  that  is,  if  we  say  happiness  is  the  supreme  end  of  our 
conscious  efforts.  But  Mr.  Spencer  did  not  so  modify  his  state- 
ment, and  taken  as  it  stands,  it  is  surely  erroneous.  The  supreme 
end  of  all  action  is  the  conservation  and  reproduction  of  indi- 
vidual life  and  of  the  species,  while  happiness  or  pleasure  is  the 
proximate  end — a  means  to  the.  supreme  end  ;  the  means  which 
Mother  Nature  adopts  to  induce  us  to  conduct  our  actions  to  the 
supreme  end.  This  is  an  evolution  theory,  so  stated.  It  may 
be  called  a  theological  theory  only  when  "  Mother  Nature "  is 
considered  to  be  a  personal  being  exercising  a  "  free  will "  inde- 
pendent of  natural  laws  ;  that  is  as  "  God."  And  whatever  name 
we  may  designate  the  evolutionary  power  by,  it  is  theological 
only  when  we  attribute  to  that  power  the  supposed  attribute  of 
supernaturalism — superiority  over  the  laws  of  nature,  arbitrary 
will,  decisions  to  do  or  not  to  do  wholly  undetermined  by  condi- 
tions or  environment.  Besides,  the  theological  theory  does  not 
imply  right  action  to  the  end  that  happiness  be  attained  as  the 
cardinal  principle,  but  belief  in  the  arbitrary,  supernatural  will 
that  demands  such  a  line  of  conduct. 


1 30  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

The  relativity  of  pains  and  pleasures  is  set  forth  at  full  length, 
as  the  author  says,  in  his  tenth  chapter,  as  "  a  truth  of  cardinal 
importance  as  a  datum  of  ethics,"  and  he  means  by  that  "  the 
truth  that  not  only  men  of  different  races,  but  also  different  men 
of  the  same  race,  and  even  the  same  men  at  different  periods  of 
life,  have  different  standards  of  happiness." 

The  relativity  of  pleasure  and  pain  is  not  recognized  by  man- 
kind in  the  barbaric  state,  or  by  the  children  of  civilized  people ; 
and  even  the  so-called  civilized  and  enlightened  adults  seldom 
recognize  it.  Spencer  truly  says  that  "  it  is  a  belief  universal  in 
early  life — a  belief  which  in  most  people  is  but  partially  corrected 
in  later  life,  and  in  very  few  wholly  dissipated — that  there  is  some- 
thing intrinsic  in  the  pleasantness  of  certain  things,  while  other 
things  are  intrinsically  unpleasant."  Some  of  our  "  advanced 
thinkers"  get  half-way  out  of  this  error,  and  affirm  with  much 
confidence  that  evil  does  not  exist,  and  that  "  all  is  good."  They 
are  misled  into  this  new  thought  doctrine  by  the  seeming  neces- 
sity of  justifying  the  personal  creator  and  supervisor  of  the 
cosmos  in  his  methods  and  means.  The  sophistry  begins  by 
accepting  as  a  major  premise  that  there  is  a  perfectly  wise,  pow- 
erful and  good  being,  whose  will  is  supreme,  who  created  all 
things  and  superintends  all  activities  in  the  world.  If  this  be 
true,  we  are  forced  to  conclude  that  "  all  is  good,"  though  in 
asserting  this  we  discount  our  own  observations  and  discredit 
our  reason.  One  step  more  is  needed  to  bring  these  people  out 
into  the  light  of  evolution,  and  that  is  that  of  recognizing  good 
and  evil — pleasures  and  pains — as  relative,  not  intrinsic  proper- 
ties of  things  and  actions.  Inherently,  or  intrinsically,  nothing 
is  either  good  or  evil ;  it  is  only  in  a  thing's  relation  to  something 
else  that  we  can  attribute  to  it  goodness  or  badness.  This  Spen- 
cer makes  plain  in  his  extended  remarks  and  illustrations  in  this 
chapter. 

Speaking  of  the  relativity  of  pain,  he  cites  these  facts  as  exam- 
ples :  "The  common  assumption- is  that  equal  bodily  injuries 
excite  equal  pains.  But  this  is  a  mistake.  Pulling  out  a  tooth, 
or  cutting  off  a  limb,  gives  to  different  persons  widely  different 


/<^. 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  131 

amounts  of  suffering ;  not  the  endurance  only  but  the  feeling  to 
be  endured,  varies  greatly ;  and  the  variation  largely  depends  on 
the  degree  of  nervous  development.  This  is  well  shown  by  the 
great  insensibility  of  idiots — blows,  cuts,  and  extremes  of  heat  and 
cold  being  borne  by  them  with  indifference.  {On  Idiocy  and  Im- 
becilify,  by  Wm.  W.  Ireland,  M.  D.,  pp.  255-6.)  The  relation  thus 
shown  in  the  most  marked  manner  where  the  development  of 
the  central  nervous  system  is  abnormally  low,  is  shown  in  a  less 
marked  manner  where  the  development  of  the  central  nervous 
system  is  normally  low ;  namely,  among  inferior  races  of  men.' 

Spencer,  after  giving  many  examples  of  the  relativity  of  pain 
in  all  of  its  phases,  says  of  its  counterpart,  thus :  "  The  rela- 
tivity of  pleasures  is  far  more  conspicuous,  and  the  illustrations 
of  it  furnished  by  the  sentient  world  at  large  are  innumerable. 
It  needs  but  to  glance  round  at  the  various  things  which  different 
creatures  are  prompted  by  their  desires  to  eat  and  are  gratified 
in  eating — flesh  for  predaceous  animals,  grass  for  herbivora, 
worms  for  the  mole,  flies  for  the  swallow,  seeds  for  the  finch, 
honey  for  the  bee,  a  decaying  carcass  for  the  maggot- -to  be 
reminded  that  the  taste  for  foods  are  relative  to  the  structures  of 
of  the  creatures. "  And  he  gives  many  illustrations  to  show 
"  that  pleasures  are  relative  not  only  to  the  organic  structures 
but  also  to  their  states."  Then  he  says  that  his  illustrations 
"  carry  home  the  truth  manifest  enough  to  all  who  observe,  that 
the  receipt  of  each  agreeable  sensation  depends  primarily  on  the 
existence  of  a  structure  which  is  called  into  play ;  and,  second- 
arily, on  the  condition  of  that  structure  as  fitting  it  or  unfitting 
it  for  activity, "  and  he  with  equal  force  and  propriety  maintains 
that  "  emotional  pleasures  are  made  possible  partly  by  the  exist- 
ence of  correlative  structures  and  partly  by  the  states  of  those 
structures." 

In  5^68  he  says  he  has  "  insisted  on  these  grand  truths,  with 
perhaps  needless  iteration,  to  prepare  the  reader  for  more  fully 
recognizing  a  corollary  that  is  practically  ignored.  .  .  .  Per- 
vaded as  all  past  thinking  has  been,  and  as  most  present  think- 
ing is,  by  the  assumption   that  the  nature  of   every  creature  has 


132  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

been  specially  created  for  it,  and  that  human  nature,  also  specially 
created,  is,  like  other  natures,  fixed — pervaded,  too,  as  this  think- 
ing has  been,  and  is,  by  the  allied  assumption  that  the  agreeable- 
ness  of  certain  actions  depends  on  their  essential  qualities,  while 
other  actions  are  by  their  essential  qualities  made  disagreeable  ; 
it  is  difficult  to  obtain  a  hearing  for  the  doctrine  that  the  kinds 
of  action  which  are  now  pleasurable  will,  under  conditions 
requiring  the  change,  cease  to  be  pleasurable.  Even  those  who 
accept  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  mostly  hear  with  skepticism,  or 
at  best  with  nominal  faith,  the  inference  to  be  drawn  from  it 
respecting  the  humanity  of  the  future.  And  yet,  as  shown  in 
myriads  of  instances,  indicated  by  the  few  above  given,  those 
natural  processes  which  have  produced  multitudinous  forms  of 
structure  adapted  to  multitudinous  forms  of  activity,  have  simul- 
taneously made  these  forms  of  activity  pleasurable.  And  the 
inevitable  application  is  that  within  the  limits  imposed  by  physical 
laws,  there  will  be  evolved,  in  adaptation  to  any  new  sets  of  con- 
ditions that  may  be  established,  appropriate  structures  of  which 
the  functions  will  yield  their  respective  gratifications."  And  he 
says  that  "the  remolding  of  human  nature  into  fitness  for  the 
requirements  of  social  life  must  eventually  make  all  needful 
activities  pleasurable,  while  it  makes  displeasurable  all  activities 
at  variance  with  these  requirements,  .  .  .  — we  shall  infer 
that  along  with  the  decrease  of  those  emotions  for  which  the 
social  state  affords  little  or  no  scope,  and  increase  of  those  which 
it  persistently  exercises,  the  things  now  done  with  dislike  from  a 
sense  of  obligation  will  be  done  with  immediate  liking,  and  the 
the  things  desisted  from  because  they  are  repugnant."  The 
author  ends  his  chapter  on  the  relativity  of  pains  and  pleasures 
with  a  restatement  of  his  principal  corollary,  to  emphasize  it,  in 
these  words : 

Pleasure  being  producible  by  the  exercise  of  any  structure 
which  is  adjusted  to  its  special  end,  supposing  it  consistent  with 
the  maintenance  of  life,  there  is  no  kind  of  activity  which  will 
not  become  a  source  of  pleasure  if  continued ;  and  therefore 
pleasure  will  eventually  accompany  any  mode  of  action  de- 
manded by  social  conditions. 


-t-Jl 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  133 

In  his  eleventh  chapter  of  the  Data  of  Ethics,  the  author  writes 
of  "  Egoism  vs.  Altruism,"  and  he  states  this  corollary  as  a  basis 
for  maintaining  this  relation  of  egoism  to  altruism,  namely : 
"The  acts  by  which  each  maintains  his  own  life  must,  speaking 
generally,  precede  in  imperativeness  all  other  acts  of  which  he  is 

capable That  is  to  say,  Ethics  has  to  recognize  the 

truth,  recognized  in  unethical  thought,  that  egoism  comes  before 
altruism."  This  statement  is  but  a  variant  of  the  old  adage, 
"Self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of  nature,"  yet  it  is  none  the 
less  true.  After  discussing  and  illustrating  this  principle  to  some 
extent,  Mr.  Spencer  says_: 

The  conclusion  forced  upon  us  is  that  the  pursuit  of  individual 
happiness  within  those  limits  prescribed  by  social  conditions  is 
the  first  requisite  to  the  attainment  of  the  greatest  general  hap- 
piness. 

In  closing  this  chapter  Mr.  Spencer  says,  "  Finally,  it  may  be 
remarked  that  a  rational  egoism,  so  far  from  implying  a  more 
egoistic  human  nature,  is  consistent  with  a  human  nature  that 
is  less  egoistic."  This  seeming  paradoxical  corollary  he  shows 
to  be  self-consistent  and  expresses  his  conclusion  in  his  final 
sentence,  thus  :  "  For  asserting  the  due  claims  of  self  is,  by 
implication,  drawing  a  limit  beyond  which  the  claims  are  undue; 
and  is,  by  consequence,  bringing  into  greater  clearness  the  claims 
of  others." 

Then,  in  Chapter  XII,  he  reverses  his  previous  caption  and 
discusses  "  Altruism  vs.  Egoism,"  and  he  introduces  his  discus- 
sion of  the  subject  from  this  standpoint  in  this  paragraph :  "  If 
we  define  altruism  as  being  all  action  which,  in  the  normal  course 
of  things,  benefits  others  instead  of  benefitting  self,  then,  from 
the  dawn  of  life,  altruism  has  been  no  less  essential  than  egoism. 
Though  primarily  it  is  dependent  on  egoism,  yet,  secondarily, 
egoism  is  dependent  on  it." 

Then,  proceeding,  he  says  he  includes  "  in  the  acts  by  which 
offspring  are  preserved  and  the  species  maintained  " — thus  again 
reaching  the  viewpoint  that  the  conservation  of  life,  individual 
and  racial,  is  the  ultimate  end  of  action  and  not  pleasure — "under 


134  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLLTION    OF    ETHICS 

altruism  in  this  comprehensive  sense"  of  the  term.  And  here 
for  the  first  time  he  seems  to  recognize  the  essential  difference 
between  conscious  and  unconscious  acts  towards  an  end  as  effect- 
ing a  difference  as  to  whether  it  be  a  proximate  or  an  ultimate 
end,  for  he  adds :  "  Moreover,  among  these  acts  must  be  in- 
cluded not  such  only  as  are  accompanied  by  consciousness,  but 
also  such  as  conduce  to  the  welfare  of  offsping  without  mental 
representation  of  the  welfare — acts  of  automatic  altruism,  as  we 
may  call  them.  Nor  must  there  be  left  out  those  lowest  altru- 
istic acts  which  subserve  race-maintenance  without  implying 
even  automatic  nervous  processes- -acts  not  in  the  remotest 
sense  psychical,  but  in  a  literal  sense  physical.  Whatever  action, 
unconscious  or  conscious,  involves  expenditure  of  individual  life 
to  the  end  of  increasing  life  in  other  individuals,  is  unquestionably 
altruistic  in  a  sense,  if  not  in  the  usual  sense  [my  italics] ;  and  it 
is  here  needful  to  understand  it  in  this  sense  that  we  may  see 
how  conscious  altruism  grows  out  of  unconscious  altruism."  He 
illustrates  his  ideas  of  unconscious  physical  altruism  by  pertinent 
examples  in  the  lowest  orders  of  life,  and  begins  by  asserting  the 
well-known  fact  of  biology  that  the  simplest  beings  multiply,  or 
reproduce,  by  spontaneous  fission — division  of  an  individual 
into  two  or  more  individuals.  He  makes  a  fine  distinction  here 
that  is  more  apparent  than  real,  by  saying  this:  "Since  the  two 
halves  [in  the  lowest  kind  of  physical  altruism]  which  before 
fission  constituted  the  individual,  do  not  on  dividing  disappear, 
we  must  say  that  though  the  individuality  of  the  parent  infuso- 
rium or  other  protozoan  is  lost  in  ceasing  to  be  single,  yet  the 
old  individual  continues  to  exist  in  each  of  the  new  individuals. 
When,  however,  as  happens  generally  with  these  smallest  animals, 
an  interval  of  quiescence  ends  in  the  breaking  up  of  the  whole 
body  into  minute  parts,  each  of  which  is  the  germ  of  a  young 
one,  we  see  the  parent  entirely  sacrificed  in  forming  progeny." 
Now,  there  is  a  michievous  fallacy  in  the  first  half  of  this  state- 
ment that  invalidates  Mr.  Spencer's  conclusion.  It  is  not  a  fact 
that  when  an  "  individual  '  divides  to  form  two  new  individuals 
the  original  individual  still  exists  in  the  two.  it  is  impossible  for 
an  "  individual  "  to  exist  as  two  —as  a  'di\)idual.     He  should  have 


THE  ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  135 

said  the  elements,  or  components,  of  the  original  individual  con- 
tinue to  exist  in  the  two  new  ones ;  but  that  the  fact  that  these 
elements  or  components  have  been  separated  establishes  the  fact 
that  the  original  "  individual "  has  been  destroyed.  Then,  the 
second  example  he  cites  is  not  essentially  different  from  the  first. 
Whether  the  original  individual  separates  into  two,  ten,  a  hun- 
dred or  myriads  of  new  individuals,  the  destruction  of  the  ori- 
ginal is  effected.  Let  us  take,  for  instance,  a  rope  100  feet  long. 
We  say  it  is  one  rope — an  individual  rope ;  cut  it  into  two  pieces 
and  immediately  it  becomes  two  ropes — two  individual  ropes, 
but  the  original  individuality  has  been  destroyed  by  the  act  of 
dividing.  Cut  the  rope  into  ten  pieces  of  ten  feet  each,  and  the 
result  is  equally,  no  more,  no  less,  a  destruction  of  the  original 
100-foot  individual  rope.  We  do  not  say  the  materials  of  which 
the  rope  or  the  infusorium  is  composed  has  been  destroyed  in 
the  latter  case  any  more  than  in  the  former,  but  that  union  of  the 
materials  which  constituted  it  one  rope  or  one  being — constituted 
it  an  individual — has  been  destroyed.  The  truth  is,  as  1  see  it, 
that  the  whole  process  of  reproduction  from  protozoa  to  mankind, 
inclusive,  is  one  of  dissolving  individuals  into  nuclei  of  newer 
individuals,  in  order  that  the  stream  of  life  may  continue,  since 
it  is  impossible,  in  the  economy  of  nature  as  it  is,  for  an  indi- 
vidual living  being  to  continue  beyond  a  necessary  limit  of  dura- 
tion, owing  to  the  fact  that  no  being  is  ever  perfectly  adapted  to 
its  environment,  and  never  can  be.  This  is  forcibly  illustrated 
by  Mr.  Spencer  himself  in  this  remark,  "  the  multitudinous  cases 
where,  as  generally  throughout  the  insect  world,  maturity  having 
been  reached  and  a  new  generation  provided  for,  life  ends; 
death  follows  the  sacrifice  made  for  progeny." 

This  destruction  of  the  individual  in  the  formation  of  two  or 
more  new  individuals  is  well  exemplified  in  bees.  When  a  hive 
of  bees  "  swarms,"  it  is  not  true  that  only  young  bees  go  out  and 
leave  the  old  queen  bee  with  her  old  workers  in  the  hive,  but 
the  old  queen  with  some  of  the  old  bees  and  some  of  the  young 
ones  go  out,  leaving  a  new  queen  with  some  of  the  old  bees  and 
some  of  the  young  ones  in  the  original  hive,  and  that  original 
hive  no  more  contains  the  original  colony  of  bees  than  does  the 


1 36  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

new  hive  into  which  the  outgoing  half  of  the  original  individual 
has  established  itself  as  an  individual  colony.  The  division  has 
destroyed  the  individual,  but  each  of  the  two  parts  of  it  is  now 
a  new  individual,  because  they  each  form  an  integral  colony  of 
bees. 

This,  of  course,  in  a  cursory  view  seems  without  bearing  on 
the  subject  of  ethics,  but  really  it  is  a  very  important  element  in 
the  data  of  ethics,  and  Mr,  Spencer  exhibits  the  spirit  of  the  true 
philosopher  in  thus  beginning  at  the  very  foundations  of  life  and 
ascending  step  by  step  to  the  highest  forms  exhibited  in  civilized 
man,  for  there  is  no  rigid  line  of  demarkation  anywhere  between 
physical  action  and  moral  or  ethical  action  -the  merging  of  the 
one  into  the  other  being  imperceptible;  and  so  as  between  un- 
conscious and  conscious  aption. 

Spencer,  in  his  second  step  in  this  section,  leaves,  as  he  says, 
"  these  lower  types  in  which  the  altruism  is  physical  only,  or  in 
which  it  is  physical  and  automatically  psychical  only,"  and 
"ascends  to  those  in  which  it  is  also,  to  a  considerable  degree, 
conscious,"  and  citing  birds  and  mammals  as  examples,  in  which, 
he  says,  "  such  parental  activities  as  are  guided  by  instinct,  are 
accompanied  by^either  no  representations  or  but  vague  represen- 
tations of  the  benefits  which  the  young  receive,  yet  there  are  also 
actions  which  we  may  class  as  altruistic  in  the  higher  sense,"  as 
the  agitation  which  such  creatures  exhibit  when  their  offspring 
are  in  danger  and  the  grief  they  experience  when  their  young 
are  destroyed,  manifest  that  in  their  "  parental  altruism  has  a 
concomitant  of  emotion." 

Then  he  explains  "  that  those  who  understand  by  altruism 
only  the  conscious  sacrifice  of  self  to  others  among  human  beings, 
will  think  it  strange  or  even  absurd,  to  extend  its  meaning  so 
widely,  but  the  justification  for  doing  this  is  greater  than  has 
thus  far  appeared "  in  his  treatment  of  the  subjects  "  I  do  not 
mean,"  he  continues,  "  merely  that  in  the  course  of  evolution 
there  has  been  a  progress  through  infinitesimal  gradations  from 
purely  physical  and  unconscious  sacrifices  of  the  individual  for 
the  welfare  of  the  species,  up  to  sacrifices  consciously  made.     I 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  137 

mean  that  from  first  to  last  the  sacrifices  are,  when  reduced  to 
their  lowest  terms,  of  the  same  essential  nature ;  to  the  last,  as  at 
first,  there  is  a  loss  of  bodily  substance."  He  explains  this  fur- 
ther by  saying  that  "  as  no  effort  can  be  made  without  an  equiv- 
alent waste  of  tissue  [a  very  important  physiological  fact],  and  as 
the  bodily  loss  is  proportionate  to  the  expenditure  that  takes 
place  without  reimbursement  in  food  consumed,  it  follows  that 
efforts  made  in  fostering  the  offspring  do  really  represent  a  part 
of  the  parental  substance,  which  is  now  given  indirectly  instead 
of  directly."  And  he  might  well  have  added,  is  only  a  higher 
development  of  the  principle  of  fission  so  apparent  in  the  lowest 
animal  forms.  Then  he  concludes  "  that  self-sacrihce  is  no  less 
primordial  than  self-preservation,"  which  is  both  true  and  import- 
ant. And  he  further  says  that  "  the  imperativeness  of  altruism 
as  thus  understood,  is  indeed,  no  less  than  the  imperativeness  of 
egoism  was  shown  to  be  in  the  last  chapter  "  treating  of  "  Egoism 
versus  Altruism." 

This  entire  chapter  in  the  Data  of  Ethics  is  one  of  the  greatest 
interest,  and  1  would  be  glad  to  quote  from  and  comment  upon 
each  section  of  it  to  the  end  if  space  were  available.  Those  at 
all  interested  in  the  true  basis  of  ethics,  or  of  a  real  science  of 
sociology,  should  carefully  study,  particularly,  this  chapter. 


In  Herbert  Spencer's  Data  of  Ethics,  which  I  have  used  and 
will  still  use  as  the  basis  of  my  treatment  of  his  ethical  phi- 
losophy— which  I  consider  the  best  accepted  representation  of 
what  is  known  as  evolutionary  ethics — the  thirteenth  chapter  is 
entitled  "Trial  and  Compromise,"  in  which  the  author  under- 
takes "to  consider  what  verdict  ought  to  be  given"  in  the  case 
of  egoism  and  the  case  of  altruism  in  conflict,  as  set  forth  in  his 
previous  chapter  and  somewhat  freely  quoted  and  commented 
upon  in  the  foregoing  pages  of  these  essays. 

He  begins  by  saying  "  if  the  opposed  statements  are  severally 
valid,  or  even  each  of  them  is  valid  in  part,  the  inference  must 
be  that  pure  egoism  and  pure  altruism  are  both  illegitimate.  If 
the  maxim,  '  Live  for  self,'  is  wrong,  so  also  is  the  maxim,  '  Live 


138  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

for  others.'  Hence,  a  compromise  is  the  only  possibility.  This 
is  really  the  conclusion  to  which  his  discussion  carries  him,  but 
stated  at.  its  beginning  as  "already  seeming  unavoidable,"  in  or- 
der that  his  succeeding  arguments  which  are  to  justify  it  may  be 
better  comprehended.  For  my  purpose  here,  his  detailed  pre- 
sentation of  the  proofs  of  the  correctness  of  this  conclusion  need 
only  be  referred  to  and  the  reader  asked  to  examine  them  in  the 
original  writings  of  Mr.  Spencer. 

In  the  theory  that  the  general  happiness  should  be  the  object 
of  pursuit,  is  embraced  the  necessary  concomitant  that  the  gen- 
eral happiness  of  all  includes  the  individual  actor,  the  "  self,"  as  a 
unit  of  the  general  ;  the  unit  being  almost  infinitesimal  as  com- 
pared with  the  great  body  of  humanity,  the  happiness  of  the 
whole  approaches  almost  infinitesimally  near  to  pure  altruism  ; — 
and  in  criticising  this  form  of  "  pure  altruism,"  Spencer  quotes 
statements  in  Mill's  Utilitarianism  and  comments  upon  the  philos- 
ophy of  both  Mill  and  Bentham  in  this  relation,  at  some  length  ; 
and  he  proceeds  to  show  that  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  "the 
happiness  of  all  can  be  achieved  without  each  pursuing  his  own 
happiness."  And  he  brings  to  view  the  implication  that  "before 
altruistic  pleasure  can  exist,  egoistic  pleasure  must  exist."  He 
also  arrives  at  the  conclusion,  in  a  portion  of  his  argument,  that 
"a  mode  of  action  which  becomes  impracticable  as  it  approaches 
universality,  must  be  wrong,"  and  that  "a  right  rule  of  conduct 
must  be  one  which  may  with  advantage  be  adopted  by  all." 

At  the  end  of  ^^9]  he  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  "disregard 
of  others  by  each,  carried  to  a  great  extent,  is  fatal  to  society,  and 
carried  to  a  still  greater  extent,  is  fatal  to  the  family,  and  eventu- 
ally to  the  race,"  and  that  egoism  and  altruism  are  therefore  both 
essential ;  and  this  is  what  he  means  by  a  "  compromise  ''  of  the 
two  principles. 

This  thirteenth  chapter  is  closed  by  some  well-stated  facts,  one 
or  two  only  of  which  I  have  space  here  to  quote  in  brief.  He 
says  truly  that  "the  more  distinct  assertions  of  individual  claims, 
and  more  rigorous  apportioning  of  personal  enjoyments  to  efforts 
expended,  have  gone  hand  in  hand  with  growth  of  that  negative 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  139 

altruism  shown  in  equitable  conduct  and  that  positive  altruism 
shown  in  gratuitous  aid."  Again,  he  says,  "  if  on  the  one  hand 
we  note  the  struggles  for  political  freedom,  the  contests  between 
labor  and  capital,  the  judicial  reforms  made  to  facilitate  enforce- 
ment of  rights,  we  see  that  the  tendency  still  is  toward  complete 
appropriation  by  each  of  whatever  benefits  are  due  him,  and  con- 
sequent exclusion  of  his  fellows  from  such  benefits  ;  on  the  other 
hand,  if  we  consider  what  is  meant  by  the  surrender  of  power  to 
the  masses,  the  abolition  of  class  privileges,  the  efforts  to  diffuse 
knowledge,  the  agitations  to  spread  temperance,  the  multitudi- 
nous philanthropic  societies,  it  becomes  clear  that  regard  for  the 
well-being  of  others  is  increasing  pari  passu  with  the  taking  of 
means  to  secure  personal  well-being." 

In  the  fourteenth  chapter,  under  the  heading,  "  Conciliation," 
Mr.  Spencer  seeks  to  conciliate  the  antagonism,  or  seeming  an- 
tagonism, between  egoism  and  altruism  as  implied  in  these  the- 
ories, as  set  out  in  the  previous  chapter.  He  says  that  to  ask 
the  question,  how  far  must  the  pursuit  by  each  of  his  own  hap- 
piness and  the  happiness  of  his  fellows  be  sought,  relatively, 
though  suggesting  discord,  or  at  least  an  absence  of  complete 
harmony,  in  the  life  of  each,  this  is  not,  however,  the  inevitable 
inference.  He  here  treats  quite  fully  of  sympathy,  and  at  the 
end  of  >595  writes  this  paragraph  : 

By  simultaneous  increase  of  its  subjective  and  objective  fac- 
tors, sympathy  may  thus,  as  the  hindrances  diminish,  rise  above 
that  now  shown  by  the  sympathetic  as  much  as  in  them  it  has 
risen  above  that  which  the  callous  show. 

And  then  he  begins  the  next  section  by  these  questions  : 
"What  must  be  the  accompanying  evolution  of  conduct?  What 
must  the  relations  between  egoism  and  altruism  become  as  this 
form  of  nature  is  neared  ?  "  and  he  concludes  the  section  by  this 
partial  answer  :  "  Subjectively  considered,  then,  the  conciliation 
of  egoism  and  altruism  will  eventually  become  such  that  though 
the  altruistic  pleasure,  as  being  a  part  of  this  consciousness  of 
one  who  experiences  it,  can  never  be  other  than  egoistic,  it  will 
not  be  conscientiously  egoistic." 


140  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

In  speaking  of  "  the  more  fortunate  succoring  the  less  fortun- 
ate," he  sa5's,  "  altruism  is  understood  to  mean  self-sacrifice " — - 
"  a  mode  of  action  which,  while  it  brings  some  pleasure,  has  an 
accompaniment  of  self-surrender  that  is  not  pleasurable."  And 
then  he  makes  this  important  statement,  which  I  deem  a  funda- 
mental and  essential  element  of  a  true  scientific  and  beneficent 
system  of  ethics,  viz :  "  The  sympathy  which  prompts  denial  of 
self  to  please  others  is  a  sympathy  which  also  receives  pleasure 
from  their  pleasures  when  they  are  otherwise  originated.  The 
stronger  the  fellow-feeling  which  excites  efforts  to  make  others 
happy,  the  stronger  is  the  fellow-feeling  with  their  happiness 
however  caused." 

This  is  the  scientific  statement  of  Col.  IngersoU's  famous  ora- 
torical maxim,  "The  way  to  be  happy  is  to  make  others  happy. 
But  Spencer  here  means  that  one  not  only  gains  his  own  happi- 
ness by  himself  directly  making  others  happy,  but  that  such  a 
habit  or  practice  implants  in,  or,  rather,  cultivates  and  develops 
in  him  the  capacity  of  being  made  happy  by  knowing  that  others 
are  made  happy  by  acts  not  his  own.  This  is  a  psychological 
law — a  law  of  sympathy,  by  which  we  rejoice  with  the  joy  of  our 
friends,  but  also  mourn  with  them  in  their  grief ;  and  the  act,  or 
that  unbroken  succession  of  acts  which  constitutes  a  line  of  con- 
duct or  habit,  that  brings  happiness  to  others  is  not  only  the 
source  of  the  purest  and  most  refined  happiness  of  the  actor,  but 
developes  within  his  mind  the  capacity  to  enjoy ;  yet  at  the  same 
time  it  developes  that  sensitiveness  and  sympathy  which  brings 
the  capacity  and  the  experience  of  suffering  with  the  suffering 
of  others.  And  yet,  even  such  sympathetic  suffering  is  ameli- 
orated and  transfigured  very  much  by  its  apparent  paradoxical 
effect  of  affording  happiness  or  pleasure  to  the  suffering  sympa- 
thizer ;  for  such  a  one  is  glad  to  be  able  to  feel  with  his  friend 
the  pangs  of  his  sorrows,  as  if  he  were  helping  him  to  bear  them, 
and  to  a  certain  extent  relieve  him  from  them. 

"  In  its  ultimate  form,  then,"  says  Mr.  Spencer,  "  altruism  will 
be  the  achievement  through  sympathj'  with  these  gratifications 
of   others,  which    are    mainly  produced   by  their   activities  of  all 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  141 

kinds  successfully  carried  on — sympathetic  gratification  which 
costs  the  receiver  nothing,  but  is  a  gratis  addition  to  his  egoistic 
gratifications.  This  power  of  representing  in  idea  the  mental 
states  of  others,  which,  during  the  process  of  adaptation,  has  had 
the  function  of  mitigating  suffering,  must,  as  the  suffering  falls 
to  a  minimum,  come  to  have  almost  wholly  the  function  of  mu- 
tually exalting  men's  enjoyments.  While  pain  prevails  widely, 
it  is  undesirable  that  each  should  participate  much  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  others ;  but  with  an  increasing  predominance  of 
pleasure,  participation  in  others'  consciousness  becomes  a  gain 
of  pleasure  to  all.  And  so  there  will  disappear  that  apparently 
permanent  opposition  between  egoism  and  altruism  implied  by 
the  compromise  reached  in  the  last  chapter.  Subjectively  looked 
at,  the  conciliation  will  be  such  that  the  individual  will  not  have 
to  balance  between  self-regarding  impulses  and  other-regarding 
impulses ;  but,  instead,  the  satisfactions  of  other-regarding  im- 
pulses which  involve  self-sacrifice,  becoming  rare  and  much- 
prized,  will  be  so  unhesitatingly  preferred  that  the  competition  of 
self-regarding  impulses  with  them  will  scarcely  be  felt.  And  the 
subjective  conciliation  will  also  be  such  that  though  altruistic 
pleasure  will  be  attained,  yet  the  motive  of  the  action  will  not 
consciously  be  the  attamment  of  altruistic  pleasure,  but  the  idea 
present  will  be  the  security  of  others'  pleasures.  Meanwhile, 
the  conciliation  objectively  considered  will  be  equally  complete. 
As,  at  an  early  stage,  egoistic  competition,  first  reach- 
ing a  compromise  such  that  each  claims  no  more  than  his  equa- 
ble share,  afterwards  rises  to  a  conciliation  such  that  each  insists 
on  the  taking  of  equitable  shares  by  others ;  so,  at  the  latest 
stage,  altruistic  competition,  first  reaching  a  compromise  under 
which  each  restrains  himself  from  taking  an  undue  share  of  altru- 
istic satisfactions,  eventually  rises  to  a  conciliation  under  which 
each  takes  care  that  others  shall  have  their  opportunities  for 
altruistic  satisfaction :  the  highest  altruism  being  that  which 
ministers  not  to  the  egoistic  satisfactions  of  others  only,  but  also 
to  their  altruistic  satisfactions. ' 

Then  Mr.  Spencer  ends  this  section  with  a  paragraph  in  which 
he  speaks  of  the  results  of  this  evolution  yet  in  futurity,  as  fol- 
lows :  "  Far  off  as  seems  such  a  state,  yet  every  one  of  the  fac- 
tors counted  on  to  produce  it  may  already  be  traced  in  operation 
among  those  of  highest  natures.  What  now  in  them  is  occa- 
sional and  feeble,  may  be  expected  with  further  evolution  to  be- 


142  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

come  habitual  and  strong ;  and  what  now  characterizes  the  ex- 
ceptionally high  may  be  expected  eventually  to  characterize  all 
For  that  which  the  best  human  nature  is  capable  of,  is  within 
the  reach  of  human  nature  at  large. " 

But  Mr.  Spencer  was  not  optimistic  as  to  the  accepting  of 
these  optimistic  conclusions,  for  "  neither  with  current  ideas  nor 
with  current  sentiments  are  they  sufficiently  congruous."  And 
1  cannot  resist  the  inclination  to  quote  in  full  his  remarks  upon 
the  influence  of  the  Christian  creed  in  presentmg  such  an  accept- 
ance. Here  is  how  he  "  roasts  "  the  church  people  in  this  rela- 
tion : 

"  Such  a  view  will  not  be  agreeable  to  those  who  lament  the 
the  spreading  disbelief  in  eternal  damnation  ;  nor  to  those  who 
follow  the  apostle  of  brute  force  in  thinking  that  because  rule  of 
the  strong  hand  was  once  good  it  is  good  for  all  time  ;  nor  to 
those  whose  reverence  for  one  who  told  them  to  put  up  the 
sword,  is  shown  by  using  the  sword  to  spread  his  doctrine 
among  heathens.  From  the  ten  thousand  priests  of  the  religion 
of  love,  who  are  silent  when  the  nation  is  moved  by  the  religion 
of  hate,  will  come  no  sign  of  assent ;  nor  from  their  bishops  who, 
far  from  urging  the  extreme  precept  of  the  master  they  pretend 
to  follow,  to  turn  the  other  cheek  when  one  is  smitten,  vote  for 
acting  on  the  principle — strike  lest  ye  be  struck.  Nor  will  any 
approval  be  felt  by  legislators  who,  after  praying  to  be  forgiven 
their  trespasses  as  they  forgive  the  trespasses  of  others,  forthwith 
decide  to  attack  those  who  have  not  trespassed  against  them, 
and  who,  after  a  Queen's  Speech,  have  invoked  '  the  blessing  of 
Almighty  God  '  on  their  councils,  immediately  provide  means  of 
committing  political  burglary.  But,  though  men  who  profess 
Ctiristianity  and  practice  paganism  can  feel  no  sympathy  with 
such  a  view,  there  are  some,  classed  as  antagonists  to  the  cur- 
rent creed,  who  may  not  think  it  absurd  to  believe  that  a  ration- 
alized version  of  its  ethical  principles  will  eventually  be  acted 
upon." 

In  his  next  chapter  (XV),  Mr.  Spencer  discusses  "  Absolute 
and  Relative  Ethics,"  and  right  here  comes  in  that  theory  of  his 
which  has  brought  him  most  antagonism  from  Rationalists  ;  the 
use  of  the  word  Power  (capitalized)  as  representing  the  "  first 
cause  "  and  operator  of  the  cosmos,  apparently  as  a  "  being,    or 


THE  ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  143 

person.  Here  is  his  first  statement  in  this  chapter:  "  Right,  as 
we  can  think  it,  necessitates  the  thought  of  not-right,  or  wrong, 
for  its  correlative,  and  hence  to  ascribe  Tightness  to  the  acts  of 
the  Power  manifested  through  phenomena  is  to  assume  the  pos- 
sibility that  wrong  acts  may  be  committed  by  this  Power.  But 
how  come  there  to  exist,  apart  from  this  Power,  conditions  of 
such  kind  that  subordination  of  its  acts  to  them  makes  them 
right  and  insubordination  wrong  ?  How  can  Unconditioned 
Being  be  subject  to  conditions  beyond  itself  ?  If,  for  example, 
anyone  should  assert  that  the  Cause  of  Things,  conceived  in 
respect  of  fundamental  moral  attributes  as  like  ourselves,  did 
right  in  producing  a  Universe  which,  in  the  course  of  immeasur- 
able time,  has  given  origin  to  beings  capable  of  pleasure,  and 
would  have  done  wrong  in  abstaining  from  the  production  of 
such  a  Universe ;  then  the  comment  to  be  made  is,  that,  impos- 
ing the  moral  ideas  generated  in  his  [  1  ]  finite  consciousness  upon 
the  Infinite  Existence  which  transcends  consciousness  he  goes 
behind  that  Infinite  Existence  and  prescribes  for  it  principles  of 
action. "  On  the  face  of  these  remarks  one  would  see  evidence 
that  Spencer  believed  in  a  "  Power "  that  is  manifested  in  the 
phenomena  of  nature  which  was  an  originating  cause  of  the 
universe,  and  conceived  of  as  having  fundamental  moral  attri- 
butes like  those  of  man — that  is  a  personal  power.  But  a  closer, 
deeper  scrutiny  of  his  language  may  reveal  that  he  was  speaking 
of  views  from  the  standpoint  of  others  who  so  believed,  irrespect- 
ive of  his  own  opinions. 

Speaking  of  absolute  right,  he  first  says :  "  As  applied  to 
ethics,  the  word  '  absolute "  will  by  many  be  supposed  to  imply 
principles  of  right  conduct  that  exist  out  of  relation  to  time  and 
place,  and  independent  of  the  universe  as  now  visible  to  us, 
'  eternal '  principles,  as  they  are  called."  But  he  does  not  use 
the  word  absolute  in  this  sense.  His  theory  of  ethics  implying 
that  right  and  wrong  can  exist  only  in  relation  to  the  actions  of 
creatures  capable  of  pleasure  and  pain,  absolute  right  is  itself,  in 
a  broader  view,  relative  right.  The  word  is  used  by  him  here 
as  I  understand  him,  to  mean  fully  or  purely,  or  completely.     As 


144  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

an  act  that  results  fully,  purely,  completely,  in  the  production  of 
pleasure,  without  any  attending  pain  or  evil  consequences,  is 
under  this  classification  called  absolutely  right.  And  to  make 
his  meaning  clearer  in  this  respect,  Spencer,  m  4^101 ,  offers  "  a 
criticism  on  the  current  conceptions  of  right  and  wrong,"  which 
though  interesting  and  pertinent,  1  can  here  only  cite.  But  he 
lays  great  emphasis  on  a  distinction  under  the  terms  absolute 
right  and  "  least  wrong  "  — this  last  really  being  the  antithesis  of 
the  first.  That  is,  the  impure,  not  fully,  incomplete  right — right 
to  a  degree  accompanied  by  more  or  less  wrong  pain-producing 
action. 

He  begins  the  next  section  with  the  remark  that  "  the  law  of 
absolute  right  can  take  no  cognizance  of  pain,  save  the  cogni- 
zance implied  by  negation."  And  further  along  he  says,  "  By 
implication,  conduct  which  has  any  concomitant  of  pain,  or  any 
painful  consequence,  is  partially  wrong  ;  and  the  higher  claim  to 
be  made  for  such  conduct  is  that  it  is  the  least  wrong  which,  under 
the  conditions,  is  possible — the  relatively  right,"  and  again,  "con- 
duct which  inflicts  any  evil  cannot  be  absolutely  good."  Then, 
as  he  says,  "  to  make  clear  the  distinction  .  .  .  between  that 
perfect  conduct  which  is  the  subject-matter  of  Absolute  Ethics, 
and  that  imperfect  conduct  which  is  the  subject-matter  of  Rela- 
tive Ethics,"  he  proceeds,  in  ?5l03,  to  give  some  illustrations. 
Then,  in  the  next  section,  he  begins  by  saying  that  "  now  we  are 
prepared  for  dealing  in  a  systematic  way  with  the  distinction 
between  Absolute  Ethics  and  Relative  Ethics,"  which  classifica- 
tion, 1  think,  is  one  of  considerable  importance,  though  so  much 
involved  in  the  ambiguity  of  the  terminology  that  there  is  diffi- 
culty in  giving  this  distinction  such  a  manifestation  as  will  be 
easily  comprehensible  by  the  general  reader. 

As  a  basis  for  explaining  the  difference  between  absolute  and 
relative  ethics,  in  the  sense  of  these  terms  used  by  Spencer,  he 
makes  the  following  rather  technical  though  correct  and  clear 
preliminary  definition  : 

"  Scientific  truths,  of  whatever  order,  are  reached  by  eliminat- 
ing  perturbing   or   conflicting   factors.     When    by   dealing  with 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  145 

fundamental  factors  in  the  abstract,  not  as  presented  in  actual 
phenomena,  but  as  presented  in  ideal  separation,  general  laws 
have  been  ascertained,  it  becomes  possible  to  draw  inferences  in 
concrete  cases  b}  taking  into  account  incidental  factors.  But  it 
is  only  by  first  ignoring  these  and  recognizing  the  essential  ele- 
ments alone  that  we  can  discover  the  essential  truths  sought." 

This  he  then  proceeds  to  illustrate  by  giving  a  brief  history  of 
the  progress  of  mechanics  from  its  empirical  form  to  its  rational 
form,  and  concludes  witfi  averrmg  that  "  we  see  [by  this]  that 
mechanical  science,  fitted  for  dealing  with  the  real,  can  arise 
only  after  ideal  mechanical  science  has  arisen,"  and  so  "  all  this 
holds  of  moral  science."  And  he  concludes  the  section  with  the 
statement  that,  "  so  a  system  of  ideal  ethical  truths,  expressing 
the  absolutely  right,  will  be  applicable  to  the  questions  of  our 
[humanity's]  transitional  state  in  such  ways  that,  allowing  for  the 
friction  of  an  incomplete  life  and  the  imperfection  of  existing  na- 
tures, we  may  ascertain  with  approximate  correctness  what  is 
relatively  right." 

Spencer  defines  "  the  moral  law  "  to  be  "  the  law  of  the  perfect 
man — the  formula  of  ideal  conduct — the  statement  in  all  cases 
of  that  which  should  be,  and  cannot  recognize  in  its  propositions 
any  elements  implying  existence  of  that  which  should  not  be. 
(See  "  Definitions  of  Morality,"  in  his  Social  Statics  and  J^  106  of 
the  Data  of  Ethics.)  Further  along  in  this  section  (p.  319)  he,  in 
speaking  of  the  alleged  precedence  of  absolute  over  relative 
ethics,  makes  this  statement :  "  An  ideal  social  being  may  be 
conceived  as  so  constituted  that  his  spontaneous  activities  are 
congruous  with  the  conditions  imposed  by  the  social  environ- 
ment formed  by  other  social  beings,"  and  "  conformably  with  the 
laws  of  organization  in  particular,  there  has  been,  and  is  in  pro- 
gress, an  adaptation  of  humanity  to  the  social  state,  changing  it 
in  the  direction  of  such  an  ideal  congruity.  And  the  corollary 
is  that  the  ultimate  man  is  one  in  whom  this  process 
has  gone  so  far  as  to  produce  a  correspondence  between  all  the 
promptings  of  his  nature  and  all  the  requirements  of  his  life  as 
carried  on  in  society.  If  so,  it  is  a  necessary  implication  that 
there  exists  an  ideal  code  of  conduct  formulating  the  behavior 
of  the  completely -adapted  man  in  the  completely-evolved  society. 


146  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

Such  a  code  is  that  here  called  Absolute  Ethics-  a  code  the 
injunctions  of  which  are  alone  to  be  considered  as  absolutely 
right  in  contrast  with  those  that  are  relatively  right  or  least 
wrong;  and  which,  as  a  system  of  ideal  conduct,  is  to  serve  as  a 
standard  for  our  guidance  in  solving,  as  well  as  we  can,  the 
problems  of  real  conduct. " 

In  ^108,  Mr.  Spencer  says  the  conception  of  ethics  he  has 
thus  set  forth  is  "  one  which  lies  latent  in  the  beliefs  of  all  mor- 
alists at  large.  Though  not  definitely  acknowledged,  it  is  vaguely 
implied  in  many  of  their  propositions."  And  then  he  proceeds 
to  briefly  review  the  doctrines  of  Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle,  the 
Stoics,  Epicurus,  and  he  adds  this  of  the  modern  phase : 

"If,  in  modern  times,  influenced  by  theological  dogmas  con- 
cerning the  fall  and  human  sinfulness,  and  by  a  theory  of  obli- 
gation derived  from  the  current  creed,  moralists  have  less  fre- 
quently referred  to  an  ideal,  yet  references  are  traceable.  We 
see  one  in  the  dictum  of  Kant — 'Act  according  to  the  maxim 
only  which  you  can  wish,  at  the  same  time,  to  become  a  uni- 
versal law.'  For  this  implies  the  thought  of  a  society  in  which 
the  maxim  is  acted  upon  by  all,  and  universal  benefit  recognized 
as  the  effect ;  there  is  a  conception  of  ideal  conduct  under  ideal 
conditions.  And  Mr.  Sidgwick  [  in  a  quotation  Mr.  Spencer  had 
made  from  him]  implies  that  ethics  is  concerned  with  man  as  he 
is  rather  than  with  man  as  he  should  be,  yet,  elsewhere  in  speak- 
ing of  ethics  as  dealing  with  conduct  as  it  should  be  rather  than 
with  conduct  as  it  is,  he  postulates  ideal  conduct  and  indirectly 

the  ideal  man It  requires  only  that  these  various 

conceptions  of  ideal  conduct  or  of  an  ideal  humanity  should  be 
made  consistent  and  definite  to  bring  them  into  agreement  with 
the  conception  above  set  forth. " 

This  chapter  (XV)  is  concluded  with  this  paragraph : 
Hence  it  is  manifest  that  we  must  consider  the  ideal  man  as 
existing  in  the  ideal  social  state.  On  the  evolution  hypothesis, 
the  two  presuppose  one  another;  and  only  when  they  co-exist 
can  there  exist  that  ideal  conduct  which  Absolute  Ethics  has  to 
formulate,  and  which  Relative  Ethics  has  to  take  as  the  standard 
by  which  to  estimate  divergences  from  right,  or  degrees  of  wrong. 
In  the  final  chapter  of  the  Data  of  Ethics,  the  author  treats  of 


THE  ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  147 

"  The  Scope  of  Ethics,"  in  a  brief  but  interesting  way,  but  in  this 
place  I  have  space  only  for  a  very  limited  reference  to  this  re- 
capitulation of  his  doctrines  as  set  forth  in  the  body  of  the  book, 
from  which  1  have  so  liberally  quoted,  and  froin  which  the  reader 
may  make  his  own  recapitulation  with  little  trouble.  1  will,  how- 
ever, here  make  a  very  condensed  summary  of  the  author  s 
closing  chapter,  as  giving  at  a  glance  his  entire  view  of  the  basis 
and  evolution  of  ethics  as  set  out  in  the  body  of  his  Data  of  Ethics 
and  in  his  other  works. 

As  the  conduct  with  which  ethics  deals  is  a  part  of  conduct  at 
large,  conduct  at  large  must  be  understood  before  this  part  can 
be  understood. 

Ethics  has  for  its  subject-matter  the  most  highly  evolved  con- 
duct as  displayed  by  the  most  highly  evolved  being — man ;  that 
is,  a  specification  of  the  traits  which  his  conduct  shows  on  reach- 
ing its  limit  of  evolution. 

Ethics  has  a  wider  field  than  is  commonly  assigned  to  it,  and 
it  "  includes  all  conduct  which  furthers  or  hinders  the  welfare  of 
self  or  others."  The  entire  field  of  ethics  includes  two  great 
divisions,  personal  and  social.  Each  of  these  divisions  has  to  be 
considered  first  as  a  part  of  absolute,  and  then  as  a  part  of  rela- 
tive ethics. 

"  A  code  of  perfect  personal  conduct  can  never  be  made  defi- 
nite." And  perfection  of  personal  life  implies  modes  of  action 
which  are  only  approximately  alike  in  all  cases.  And  though  it 
cannot  be  said  that  it  is  possible  to  reduce  this  restricted  part  to 
scientific  definiteness,  "  ethical  requirements  may  here  be  to  such 
an  extent  affiliated  upon  physical  necessities  as  to  give  them  a 
partially  scientific  authority." 

In  the  conduct  of  the  ideal  man  among  ideal  men,  that  self- 
regulation  which  has  for  its  motive  to  avoid  giving  pain,  practic- 
ally disappears." 

Negative  beneficence,  though  only  a  nominal  part  of  absolute 
ethics,  it  is  an  actual  part  of  relative  ethics. 

It  can  only  be  said  of  positive  benehcence  under  its  absolute 
form  that  nothing  can  be  said  more  specifically  than  that  "  it 
must  become  co-extensive  with  whatever  sphere  remains  for  it." 
And  positive  beneficence  in  its  relative  form  presents  problems 
admitting  only  of  empirical  solutions,  and  only  approximately 
true  answers  to  the  questions  involved. 


148  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

"  But  though  here  absolute  ethics,  by  the  standard  it  supplies 
does  not  greatly  aid  relative  ethics,  yet,  as  in  other  cases,  it  aids 
somewhat  by  keeping  before  the  consciousness  an  ideal  concilia- 
tion of  the  various  claims  involved,  and  by  suggesting  the  search 
for  such  compromise  among  them  as  shall  not  disregard  any,  but 
shall  satisfy  all  to  the  greatest  extent  practicable." 

In  Spencer's  Prospectus  to  his  ^p^/em  of  Philosophy  he  pro- 
posed to  treat  of  the  subject-matter  of  Moral  Science,  Personal 
Morals,  Justice,  Negative  Beneficence,  and   Positive  Beneficence. 

Under  the  hrst  of  these  heads,  he  includes  "  the  principles  of 
private  conduct  physical,  intellectual,  moral  and  religious  that 
follow^  from  the  conditions  to  complete  mdividual  life."  Under 
Justice,  he  proposed  'the  mutual  limitations  of  men's  actions 
necessitated  by  their  co-existence  as  units  of  society — limitations 
the  perfect  observance  of  w^hich  constitutes  that  state  of  equi- 
librium forming  the  goal  of  political  progress."  Negative  Benefi- 
cence he  applies  as  a  caption  for  his  treatment  of  "  those  second- 
ary limitations,  similarly  necessitated,  which,  though  less  import- 
ant, and  not  cognizable  by  law,  are  yet  requisite  to  prevent 
mutual  destruction  of  happiness  in  various  indirect  ways;  in 
other  words,  those  minor  self-restraints  dictated  by  what  may  be 
called  passive  sympathj'.  And  under  the  head  of  Positive 
Beneficence,  he  includes  "all  modes  of  conduct,  dictated  by  active 
sympathy,  which  imply  pleasure  in  giving  pleasure  modes  of 
conduct  that  social  adaptation  has  induced  and  must  render  ever 
more  general,  and  which  in  becoming  universal  must  fill  to  the 
full  the  possible  measure  of  human  happiness. " 

Here  1  must  close  my  review  of  Mr.  Spencer's  ethics  as  set 
forth  chiefly  in  his  great  work,  the  Data  of  Ethics.  I  have  given 
it  so  much  greater  time  and  space  in  this  discussion  than  I  have 
given  to  any  other  man's  system  or  published  works,  because  1 
consider  it  the  best  and  most  important  exposition  ever  yet  pro- 
duced, of  the  modern  evolutionary,  or  scientific,  concept  of  the 
origin,  basis  and  development  of  ethics  and  ethical  philosophy. 
And  this,  though  I  do  not  wholly  agree  with  Mr.  Spencer  in  all 
things,  and  have  offered,  from  time  to  time,  criticisms  of  what  1 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  149 

believe  to  be  defects  in  his  ethical  doctrines,  and  his  conceptions 
of  evolution  as  applied  to  ethics,  etc.  1  fully  recognize  the  great- 
ness of  Herbert  Spencers  intellect  and  the  extent  of  his  mental 
training  as  an  original  thinker,  and  I  only  venture  to  state  my 
own  views  in  contrast  to,  or  opposition  to,  any  of  his  with  the 
understanding  of  the  reader  that  they  are  offered  for  only  what 
they  are  worth,  if  anything. 


SECTIOiST    \TII. 

VIEWS  OF  ETHICAL  EVOLUTIONISTS   OF  TODAY. 

In  this  Section  a  brief,  rather  desultory  discussion  of  some 
present-day  phases  of  changes  in  ethical  theories  and  moral 
conduct  will  be  presented.  So  far  as  authors  are  concerned 
in  connection  with  these  newest  theories  and  variations  of  char- 
acter, they  may  not  be  men  who  have  gained  renown  as  philos- 
ophers or  as  scientific  discoverers,  but  the  facts  and  reasoning 
they  set  out  will  be  presented  solely  on  their  own  merits. 

One  of  the  writers  which  1  propose  to  cite  here,  C.  A.  Ste- 
phens, M.  D.,  in  his  work,  Natural  Salvation,  makes  some  remarks 
about  theory,  hypothesis  and  science  that  are  so  pertinent  to  the 
ideas  above  referred  to,  as  introductory  to  this  section,  that  I  will 
quote  them,  as  follows  : 

"  It  is  a  part  of  the  unwritten  code  of  science  that  the  investi- 
gator shall  avoid  a  priori  conclusions,  look  coldly  upon  theory 
and  be  wary  of  hypothesis.  In  a  word,  that  he  shall  devote 
himself  patiently  to  the  acquisition  of  data,  be  content  to  collect 
facts,  and  live  abstinent  of  ever-present  human  weakness  to  play 
the  role  of  prophet.  Nothing,  indeed,  so  surely  distinguishes 
the  man  of  science  from  the  charlatan  as  his  attitude  toward 
theory  and  his  caution  in  presenting  conclusions.  A  single  page, 
often  a  single  paragraph,  of  the  article,  or  the  book,  of  a  writer 
on  scientific  subjects,  enables  us  to  judge  all  too  accurately  of 
the  value,  or  lack  of  value,  of  his  entire  effort  ;  and,  generally 
speaking,  the  verdict  turns  on  the  care  with  which  he  draws 
conclusions  from  data.  Science  has  endured  so  much  of  pre- 
mature  vaticination    that   its  best   friends   and  exponents  have 


150  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

come  to  regard  all  that  sort  of  thing  with  marked  hostility,  as 
detrimental  to  true  progress.  There  is  a  disposition  to  put  inju- 
dicious enthusiasts  outside  the  pale.  A  certain  regimen  has 
come  to  prevail ;  immature  publication  is  held  to  be  bad  form 
as  well  as  futile.  Humility  and  an  educated  conservatism  char- 
acterize the  truly  scientific  mind  :  the  attitude  of  Newton  at  the 
end  of  his  grand  discoveries. '     (Page  7.) 

This,  no  matter  what  its  authenticity  may  be,  is  acceptable  to 
both  readers  and  writers  embued  with  the  spirit  of  the  modern 
scientific  method.  Yet,  theory,  hypothesis,  and  belief  have  their 
places  in  conjunction  with  scientific  investigation,  just  as  scaffold- 
ing, ladders  and  hoisting  apparatus  have  their  place  as  temporary 
means  to  permanent  ends  in  the  erection  of  a  building.  The 
author  here  quoted  clearly  recognizes  this,  and  adds  these  sen- 
tences to  the  above : 

"  It  is  in  the  nature  and  constitution  of  the  human  mind,  how- 
ever to  believe  something.  The  history  of  mankind  shows  that 
those  tribes,  nations  and  races  which  have  gone  forward  with 
the  greatest  energy  have  been  actuated  and  incited  by  confident 
beliefs  as  to  the  origin  and  destiny  of  human  beings.  In  like 
manner  the  scientist  has  often  found  hypothesis  an  adjuvant; 
for  an  hypothesis  is  of  the  nature  of  a  belief.  Some  of  the  most 
signal  discoveries  in  astronomy,  chemistry  and  biology  have  been 
elicited  under  guidance  of  provisional  theories.  There  is  a  use 
as  well  as  abuse  of  hypothesis;  and,  moreover,  the  theories  of 
science  are  often  bona  fide  glimpses  of  truth." 

Yes ;  and  the  true  attitude  of  mind,  1  think,  in  relation  to  this 
is,  that  one  carefully  and  conscientiously,  all  the  time,  keep  in 
mind  and  expression  a  clear  distinction  between  scientific  facts 
and  principles  and  scientific  hypotheses  and  theories.  It  is  the 
confusion  of  these  things  that  misleads  the  novice  in  scientific 
study,  and,  all  too  often,  even  the  professed  scientist  whose  intel- 
lectual character  is  too  easily  swayed  from  exactitude  by  the  free 
and  easy  sweeps  of  the  imagination  acting  as  the  enthusiastic 
creator  of  hypotheses,  guesses  and  theories. 

Dr.  Stephens  has  said  well  here.  But  like  millions  of  other 
doctors  who  have  preceded  him,  he  preaches  better  than  he 
practices,  and    in   his   enthusiastic   effort  to  support  a  theory  of 


THE  ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  151 

human  immortality  falls  into  errors  he  himself  warns  others 
against.  He,  in  his  zeal,  seems  to  be  conscious  of  his  overreach- 
ing, to  some  extent,  but  excuses  it  on  the  ground  that  he  is  offer- 
ing "  glimpses  of.  the  truth  "  that  "will  light  us  forward  in  the 
great  outer  darkness  of  the  universe."  Anu  then  he  enters  this 
disclaimer,  in  a  moment  of  awakening  to  the  rather  too  zealous 
violation  of  his  excellent  formula  of  the  modern  scientific  meth- 
od :  "  As  such  and  such  only  are  the  present  outlines  [in  his 
Natural  Salvation]  of  a  greater  gospel  put  forward  ;  a  provisional 
belief  to  be  used  as  a  scientist  uses  an  hypothesis  ;  probably  true, 
better  certainly  than  the  existent  babel  of  doctrines." 

Speaking  of  the  present  diversity  of  belief,  in  America  espe- 
cially, he  turns  optimistically  to  this  view :  "  Even  now,  already, 
science  is  able  to  outline  a  new  and  greater  faith ;  and  no  pro- 
phetic gift  is  required  to  assure  us  that  this  new  faith  will  be  the 
religion  of  future  America.  For  new  hope  has  come  to  the  hu- 
man heart,  the  hope  of  salvation  from  '  sin  '  and  death  by  natural 
means:  natural  salvation,  contradistinguished  from  supernatural 
salvation."  This  mixing-up  of  science  with  faith,  or  looking  to 
science  to  establish  a  faith  is  confusing  to  one  who  has  learned 
to  use  these  terms — science  and  faith — as  antitheses,  or  even 
enemies  ;  of  science  as  destructive  rather  than  constructive  of 
"  faith."  Nevertheless,  the  author  makes  many  truthful  state- 
ments, if  we  keep  well  in  mind  what  he  means  by  the  term  faith. 
For  instance,  he  says  : 

"  Supernaturalism  has  been  the  burden  of  all  previous  religious 
systems.  In  all  the  past,  human  hopes  have  founded  on  rite, 
sacrifice  and  supernatural  rescue.  But  the  keynote  and  initiative 
of  science  is  natural  salvation  :  salvation  under  nature  accom- 
plished by  the  growth  and  conservation  of  human  knowledge. 
In  all  the  past,  man  has  turned  to  the  skies  and  prayed  to  powers 
beyond  the  earth  for  salvation  ;  but  now,  at  the  dawn  of  the 
twentieth  century,  he  turns  to  himself  and  grandly,  hopefully, 
estimates  the  problem  of  self-salvation." 

It  may  be  objected  that  this  is  religion,  not  ethics.  But  when 
we  take  the  broad,  evolutionari-  view  of  ethics,  we  see  that  re- 
ligion is  but  a  phase  of  ethical  development,  inadequate   though 


152  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

it  be,  like  all  of  the  phases  of  evolution  that  precede  perfection. 
The  truth  is,  I  think,  that  all  ethical  principles  and  conduct  relate 
to  man  s  attempts  to  secure  more  and  longer  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  race,  in  large  measure  unconsciously  and  through 
the  inducement  of  expected  happiness  or  miserj'.  So  that  this 
message  of  science,  as  Dr.  Stephens  calls  it,  is  essentially  an  up- 
ward step  in  the  scale  in  ethical  evolution,  though  he  may  speak 
of  it  as  a  "  religion."  In  fact  it  is  the  step  that  is  to  carry  man 
up  out  of  the  theological  era  into  the  scientific  ethical  era.  And 
this  does  not  imply,  as  the  Doctor  seems  to  believe  and  hope, 
that  the  new  phase  is  a  step  toward  the  abolition  of  bodily  death 
and  the  immortality  of  the  material  individual.  Evolution  may 
go  on  eternally  without  such  a  result,  for  its  progress  is  not  in  a 
straight,  directly-upward  line  from  chaos  or  utter  imperfection  to 
ultimate  order  and  perfection,  but  a  series  of  revolutions,  wherein 
occur  the  succession  of  the  nights  and  days,  the  winters  and 
summers,  the  deaths  and  lives  of  never-ending  change.  It  is 
not  logical  to  object  that  such  an  evolutionary  law  is  not  "  right," 
or  beneficent,  or  consistent  with  the  character  of  the  designer 
and  conductor  of  nature  and  natural  phenomena,  for  we  know 
nothing  of  any  immaculate  designer  and  conductor  ;  and  even 
if  we  assume  that  there  be  a  designer  and  conductor  of  a  per- 
sonal nature,  we  are  not  warranted  in  drawing  our  inferences  of 
that  being's  character  from  mere  imagination,  for  we  must  judge 
of  the  character  of  such  designer  and  conductor,  as  we  do  in 
every-day  affairs,  by  the  character  of  his  work.  The  unknown 
character  of  a  designer  is  no  guide  to  the  character  of  the  thing 
designed,  but  the  known  character  of  the. design  is  a  reliable  guide 
to  the  character  of  the  designer.  We  are  bound  to  accept  the 
results  of  our  observation  of  the  phenomena  of  nature,  whether 
they  appear  to  us  to  be  "  right,"  or  beneficent,  or  wise,  or  such  as 
we  would  expect  from  a  designer  in  chaj"acter  like  our  highest 
ideals  of  human  character,  or  the  reverse  of  these  qualities. 

The  author  of  The  New  Ethics,  J.  Howard  Moore,  is  another 
of  these  writers  upon  the  latest  phase  of  morality  as  brought 
about    by  evolution  up  to  the  present,  and  forefeeling  the  future 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  153 

at  least  to  some  extent,  who  does  not  speak  so  much  as  "  one 
having  authority, "  as  one  who  has  the  courage  to  speak  the  truth 
as  he  thinks  he  sees  it.  The  reader  of  such  writers,  however, 
must  always  be  an  guard  against  the  misleading  influence  of 
their  enthusiasm  and  zeal  consequent  upon  a  development  of 
sentiment  out  of  proportion  to  the  development  of  their  purely 
intellectual  powers. 

In  his  first  chapter,  Mr.  Moore  begins  with  a  statement  that 
the  Freethinker  accepts  as  a  truism,  but  which  very  many  people 
have  not  as  yet  been  able  to  comprehend  and  accept.  It  is  this : 
"  No  being  can  believe  a  thing  or  can  keep  from  believing  a 
thing  by  simply  deciding  to  do  so."  This  is  simply  a  variant  of 
the  statement  of  the  law  of  Determinism — that  all  human  acts, 
including  will  and  belief,  are  determined  by  inherited  organiza- 
tion and  personal  environment.  Mr.  Moore  continues  :  "  Psychic 
phenomena,  like  all  other  phenomena,  take  place  according  to 
fixed  laws.  The  notion  that  opinions  are  formed  by  an  arbitrary 
act  of  the  mind,  and  are  not  related  causally  to  the  conditions 
from  which  they  come,  is  as  unsupported  by  fact  as  that  other 
supposition,  once  universally  held,  but  now  about  outgrown,  that 
events  in  the  physical  world  just  happen  without  any  necessary 
connection  with  each  other,  or  with  the  circumstances  from  which 
they  come." 

Mr.  Moore's  specialty  in  ethics  is  the  idea  that  all  beings,  hu- 
man and  below  human  or  brute — all  sentient  beings — are  ethic- 
ally related  to  one  another  ;  that  the  field  of  morals  is  not  merely 
the  relations  of  man  to  man,  but  also  of  man  to  brute  and  of 
brute  to  brute.  Of  course  this  largely  depends  upon  the  defini- 
tion of  terms  and  the  point  of  view.  Generally  the  words  ethics 
and  morals  are  restricted  to  the  relations  of  man  to  man.  But 
the  meaning  may  be  extended  so  as  to  include  all  sentient  beings, 
just  as  we  usually  mean  by  physiology  the  science  of  human 
functions,  but  may  and  do  use  the  term  in  a  far  more  general 
sense  to  mean  the  science  of  functions  of  all  living  beings,  hu- 
man, brute  and  plant. 

Mr.  Moore  is  something  of  a  zealot  in  his  field.     In  his  zeal  to 


154  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

emphasize  his  theory  of  universal  kinship  and  ethics,  he  is  reck- 
less  in    many  of  his  assertions,  which  is  unbecoming  a  true  sci- 
entist.    He  exaggerates  the  immorality  of  man  as  compared  with 
brutes,  and  in  this  places  himself  in  the  same  attitude  as  that  of 
the  Christian   theologians.      He  complains   that  men  are  so  very 
immoral  because  they  have  been  driven  into,  or  led  into,  immoral 
conduct  by  their  predecessors     have  inherited  the  evil  tendency. 
But  the  cool-headed  scientist  will   go    back   of   heredity  and  ask^ 
what  is  the  primary  cause  ?     From   what   did  man    first  receive 
these  "  evil  "  impulses  and   tendencies?     Nature  is  the  universal 
fountain  of   all    things,  call  them  good  or  evil,  as  we  may.     Our 
inheritance  is  from  the  circumstances  in  which  our  predecessors 
lived,  and  all   our  acts  that  combine  to  form  lines  of  conduct  or 
habits  are  determined,  from  the  mono-cell  to  model  man,  by  en- 
vironment.     Man  cannot  blame  himself    for  any  of  his  faults — 
his  failures  to    reach   any  ideal — because  environment,  not  him- 
self, has  been  his  creator.      Nature — that   broad    nature   that    is 
all-comprehensive — must  bear  the  blame,  if  blame  there  be,  for 
what  appear  to  be  human  defections.    And  to  him  who  observes 
closely  and    reflects    intelligently,  and   without    prejudice,  defects 
are  seen   in  every  department    of   nature  outside  of   the    human 
race   ac   well   as   within    it.      Destruction,  miscarriage  and  mon- 
strosity appear  right  along  with  construction,  successful  adapta- 
tion of  means    to  ends  and    balanced   proportions   of    parts   and 
acts.     Whether  or  not  we  can  class  those  things  as  good  or  evil, 
depends  upon  what  we  mean  by  those  words.      If  used  to  desig. 
nate  relation   of    things   and  acts  to  special  ends,  they  are  legiti- 
mate, and  we  may  say  that  nature  is  far  from  perfect ;  but  if  we 
mean  that  good  and  evil  are  positive,  absolute  qualities,  we  must 
say  that  nature  is  neither  good  nor  evil. 

In  his  zeal  to  picture  the  "  depravity  "  of  man  in  the  deepest 
shades,  Mr.  Moore  exclaims  :  "  Oh  this  killing,  killing,  ^////ng  - 
this  awful,  never-slopping,  never-ending,  world-wide  butchery! 
What  a  world  !  '  Ideal  '  ?  and  '  perfect'  ?  and  '  all-wise'  ?  Cer- 
tainly—  to  tigers,  and  highwaymen,  and  people  who  are  sound 
asleep ;  but  to  everybody  else  it  is  simply  monstrous.  We  are 
nothing  but  a  lot  of  ferocious    humbugs — that   is    the   long  and 


THE  ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  155 

short  of  it — leading  lives  all  the  way  from  a  tenth  to  two-thirds 
decent  in  our  conduct  toward  our  fellow-men,  but  almost  abso- 
lutely savage  in  our  treatment  of  not  men."  And  he  charac- 
terizes the  race  as  '.'  a  globeful  of  lip-virtuous  felons !  " 

But  where  is  the  standard  by  which  we  shall  measure  human 
conduct  to  reach  such  a  verdict  ?  Throughout  nature  we  find 
this  "  killing,  killing,  filling  " — this  "  world-wide  butchery";  indeed 
construction  is  dependent  upon  destruction,  for  out  of  the  debris 
of  what  has  been  is  made  what  is  to  be,  on  and  on,  and  forever. 
What  then  is  cruelty?  Is  it  a  vice?  Certainly.  Whatever 
means  results  in  evil  effects  to  the  actor  or  his  species  is  a  vice. 
To  slay  wantonly  is  vicious,  because  the  act  brings  no  adequate 
reward  or  return  but  cultivates  the  habit  of  wantonness  and  dulls 
the  sense  of  sympathy  and  propriety. 

On  page  1 63  of  The  New  Ethics,  the  author  thus  speaks  of  the 
ethics  of  nature: 

"  In  the  first  place,  Nature  is  not  perfect  nor  ideal,  as  it  is  as- 
sumed to  be  by  those  who  make  this  objection.  That  great, 
perfect,  all-beneficial  Nature,  that  never  had  a  blemish  nor  made 
a  mistake,  or  if  it  did  make  a  mistake  the  mistake  was  supposed 
to  be  some  particularly  profound  act  whose  goodness  eluded  the 
understandings  of  men — this  Nature,  the  masterpiece  of  an  all- 
wise  mind,  the  Nature  of  the  pre-Darwinians,  has  passed  away. 
And  in  its  place  we  have  an  evolved  and  evolving  Nature,  very 
imperfect,  some  parts  of  it  especially.  Among  imperfect  parts 
may  be  mentioned  the  incompetents  who  are  not  able  to  recog- 
nize imperfections  when  they  meet  them  in  their  own  minds." 
And  on  page  1 69,  adds  :  "  But  We  are  a  part  of  Nature,  just  as 
truly  a  part  of  the  universe  of  things  as   the   insect  of  the  sea.' 

Mr.  Moore  answers  the  objection  that  if  ethical  relations  are 
extended  by  man  to  other  animals,  he  should  extend  these  same 
relations  to  plants  also,  by  saying  that  this  "  assumes  that  the 
basis  of  ethics  is  life,  whereas  ethics  is  concerned,  not  with  life> 
but  with  consciousness.  The  question  ever  asked  by  ethics  is  not. 
Does  the  thing  live?  but.  Does  it  feel?  It  is  impossible  to  do 
right  or  wrong  to  that  which  is  incapable  of  sentient  experience. 
Ethics  arises  with  consciousness  and  is  co-extenstve  with  it." 

In  closing  his  chapter  on  the  "  Flashlights  of  Progress,"  in  The 
New  Ethics,  Mr.  Moore  says  some  very  good  things  about  evolu- 


156  THE   ORIGIN   AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS 

tion — evolution  especially  as  related  to  ethical  progress.  Speak- 
ing of  the  way  the  doctrine  of  evolution  was  combatted  a  few 
years  ago,  he  says  : 

"  Many  seemed  to  feel  that  one  of  the  worst  things  about  the 
new  doctrine  w^as  the  way  it  treated  the  '  Almighty  — impairing 
his  dignity  so,  and  undermining  many  of  his  choicest  and  most 
venerable  functions.  They  seemed  to  think  that  if  evolution  was 
true,  God  wouldn't  have  anything  to  do,  and  would  have  to  read 
novels  or  go  fishing  in  order  to  kill  time.  Mr.  Gladstone,  emi- 
nent as  a  politician  but  a  mere  child  in  science,  was  one  of  these. 
In  an  address  at  Liverpool,  he  said  :  '  Upon  the  grounds  of  what 
is  termed  evolution,  God  is  relieved  of  the  labor  of  creation,  and 
in  the  name  of  unchangeable  laws  he  is  dismissed  from  the 
superintendency  of  the  world.'  Which  is  about  true.  But  what 
of  it?  Herbert  Spencer  called  Mr.  Gladstone's  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  same  thing  which  he  complained  of  as  having  been 
done  by  Darwin  had  already  been  done  by  Newton  in  his  law  of 
gravitation,  and  by  Kepler  in  his  laws  of  astronomy.  But  Mr. 
Gladstone  conveniently  failed  to  see  the  point,  and  relieved  him- 
self by  sending  a  rhetorical  sky-rocket  to  the  Contemporary  Review. 
The  editor  of  the  Dublin  University  Magazine  went  Mr.  Gladstone 
one  better  by  charging  Darwin  and  his  band  with  being  '  resolved 
to  hunt  God  out  of  the  world ' !  How  pitiful  !  How  anthropo- 
morphic and  childish  the  human  mind  can  be  when  it  takes  a 
notion  !  And  what  an  incomparable  weakling  the  Lord  of  Cos- 
mos must  be,  anyway,  to  permit  himself  to  be  put  to  rout  by  an 
Englishman  and  banished  from  the  universe  by  a  book! 

"  We  live  in  a  brighter  age.  .  .  .  We  cannot  yet  point  to 
complete  triumph  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  but  we  can  say 
that  it  is  getting  along  very  well.  ...  In  the  realms  of  the 
natural  sciences  the  success  of  evolution  may  be  considered 
complete,  and  it  is  invading  rapidly  those  regions  of  human 
knowledge  lying  farther  and  farther  from  the  sciences  of  its 
birth.  It  is  destined  finally  to  revise  and  rationalize  every  field 
of  human  thought,  and  to  work  on  organic  phenomena,  as  a 
whole,  the  profoundest  and  most  far-reaching  effects  of  any 
revelation  that  has  thus  far  flashed  on  the  children  of  men. " 

Mr.  Moore  has  glimpses,  if  not  a  full  realization,  of  the  truth 
of  Determinism.      In   his  concluding  chapter  of    The  Netv  Ethics, 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  157 

his   first   sentence    is,    "  We  are  slaves  of  the  past.'      The  second 
paragraph  reads : 

"  It  is  not  true  that  we  are  free.  We  are  free  to  do  only  that 
which  we  are  destined  to  do.  We  do  not  choose  our  natures  or 
our  minds  any  more  than  we  do  our  appearances.  We  are  cut 
out  by  the  universe  [nature],  of  which  we  are  but  parts,  receiving 
our  ways  of  acting  from  the  clays  that  compose  us  when  we 
come  into  the  world  and  the  circumstances   that   surround   us. 


SECTION    IX. 

ETHICAL   CULTURE   AND    EVOLUTION. 

TN  concluding  this  series  of  essays  on  the  origin  and  evolution 
of  ethics  1  deem  it  pertinent  to  consider  briefly  the  relation 
of  ethical  culture,  or  the  teaching  of  morality,  to  the  process  of 
evolution,  and  the  relation  of  the  principle  of  Determinism  to 
such  teaching. 

That  ethics  as  a  line  of  conduct  originated  in  the  experiences 
of  the  human  race  as,  first,  bi-sexual  and,  second,  as  gregarious 
animals,  and  third,  as  social  humans,  seems  to  me  to  be  proven 
by  the  facts  of  modern  biological  science  as  well  as  deducible 
from  the  general  trend  of  .the  various  ethical  theories  discussed 
in  foregoing  sections  of  this  essay.  If  we  accept  this  as  true, 
there  remains  no  necessity  for  ascribing  the  origin  of  the  '*  moral 
law  '*  to  the  gods,  to  Jehovah,  or  to  any  supernatural  or  provi- 
dential source.  Whatever  in  our  experience  or  observation  can 
be  accounted  for  without  resort  to  hypotheses  of  occult  causes 
we  must  accept,  by  the  scientific  method  and  common-sense 
reasoning,  as  not  of  mystical  or  supernatural  origin. 

In  the  study  of  human  conduct  of  the  individuals  of  limited 
associations  and  of  the  race  in  relation  with  one  another,  we  find 
that  there  has  been  a  certain  progressive  movement  toward  com- 
pleteness and  complexity,  which  we  usually  designate  as  devel- 
opment or  progress — advancement,  ascension  of  the  scale  from 
zero  up   through   simple   and   inadequate   rules  of   conduct   or 


138  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

moral  laws  to  more  complete,  more  adequate  and  practicable 
rules  and  codes  of  rules,  systems  of  ethics  and  political  laws. 

This  progress  is  by  some  ascribed  to  the  intervention  in  the 
affairs  of  men,  of  the  gods,  or  God,  or  the  spirits  of  predecessor 
humans  who  have  died.  Many  think  that  the  human  mind  is 
incapable  of  progressing  from  savagery  to  civilization  without 
the  supervision  and  directing  activity  of  a  superior  beneficent 
and  w^ise  personal  power  over  it.  But  this  progress  from  sav- 
agery to  civilization  is  not  the  whole  of  evolution  it  is  only  half 
of  it.  Movement  in  the  opposite  direction  is  just  as  evident, 
just  as  necessary  and  just  as  much  a  part  of  the  general  evolu- 
tionary movement  of  all  things  as  is  movement  in  the  direction 
of  complexity  and  completeness.  The  evening  follows  the  morn- 
ing as  inevitably  and  as  necessarily  as  the  morning  follows  the 
evening ;  the  sun  lowers  and  sets  each  day  as  well  as  rises  and 
mounts  the  heavens  to  the  zenith  ;  it  goes  (apparently)  down  the 
southern  slope  of  the  celestial  arch  each  autumn  as  regularly  as 
it  mounts  each  spring  the  same  apparent  arc  of  the  celestial 
hemisphere  ;  the  year  consists  of  the  fall  of  the  sear  leaf  and  the 
decline  of  heat  and  light  as  well  as  of  the  growth  of  vegetation 
and  the  daily  increase  of  the  heat  and  light  of  spring  and  early 
summer.  Evoltition  is  by  revolution,  as  everyone  who  has  eyes 
may  see  all  about  him.  And  from  this  general  law  of  evolution 
we  are  logically  bound  to  infer  that  ethics  not  only  rises  towards 
complexity  and  completeness,  but  falls  back  in  the  opposite 
direction.  Decline  and  death  everywhere  is  essential  to  birth 
and  growth.  Without  disintegration  of  old  forms  there  is  not 
material,  space  or  force  (motion)  for  the  building  of  new  forms. 

We  may  deplore  the  fact  as  much  as  we  please,  that  civiliza- 
tion and  morality  must  decline  as  well  as  grow  in  the  economy 
of  nature,  but  the  truth  is  truth  whether  w^e  like  it  or  not.  We 
deplore  the  fact  of  human  decline  after  middle  age  has  been 
reached,  and  the  fact  that  finally  the  body  must  return  to  the 
earth  from  which  it  arose  ;  but  deplore  it  as  much  as  we  will, 
we  are  compelled    to  accept  it  and  abide  by  the  inexorable  law. 

Why,  then,  it    may   be   asked,    should   we   exert    ourselves   to 


THE   ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  159 

propagate  principles  of  a  better  morality  ?  Why  try  to  teach 
our  children  and  the  cruder  members  of  society  the  rules  of 
ethics  that  will  develop  them  into  more  civilized  and  more  moral, 
or  "better"  beings  and  members  of  society?  If  environment 
determines  the  character  of  not  only  the  individual,  but  as  well 
of  the  race  in  its  entirety  of  place  and  time,  how  can  we  be  justi- 
fied in  attempting  to  reform  the  wayward  or  to  teach  the  morally 
degenerate  ?  The  answers  to  these  questions  are  difficult  to 
understand  by  minds  imbued  with  the  notion  of  a  "  free  will  * — 
a  hallucination  as  surely  and  as  evidently  as  is  the  notion  that 
the  sun  actually  rises  and  sets  by  a  movement  of  itself  over  the 
earth  is  an  illusion.  But  to  a  mind  which  has  thoroughly  studied 
the  principle  of  Deterrfiinism,  and  is  able  to  comprehend  the  fact 
that  environment  includes  not  only  the  commonly-recognized 
conditions,  but  also  the  so-called  voluntary  acts  of  our  associates, 
these  answers  giving  reasons  for  teaching  morality,  restraining 
criminals,  promoting  reform  measures,  etc.,  are  clear  and  con- 
vincing. A  parent  teaches  his  children  morality  because  natural 
environment  has  determined  his  will  to  do  so.  It  is  "  right " 
because  it  is  in  accord  with  the  natural  law  of  evolution — -it  is 
one  of  the  means  of  evolution.  Nature,  whether  }'ou  consider  it 
mind  or  imbued  with  mind,  or  void  of  intellect  and  conscious- 
ness, embraces  not  only  all  that  is  outside  of  the  human  body, 
brain  and  mind,  but  also  all  that  is  within  them,  including  intel- 
lect, consciousness  and  will. 

Why  teach  morals?  For  the  same  reason  that  we  do  other 
things.  For  utility's  sake.  The  act  adds  to  our  happiness — it  is 
a  means  to  the  proximate,  conscious  end  of  human  conduct — 
happiness — and  a  means  to  the  subconscious  ultimate  end,  the 
conservation  and  reproduction  of  life.  The  reason  for  teaching 
morality  appeals  to  the  vast  majority  of  people  from  the  stand- 
point of  happiness  secured  thereby  as  the  end  of  conduct — the 
summum  bonum;  but  to  the  thinker,  this  motive  is  only  Mother 
Natures  little  sugar-plum  by  which  she  seduces  her  children  into 
doing  the  things  that  conserve  and  reproduce  life. 

It  may  be  objected    that,  if  we  teach   morality  voluntarily  then 


160  THE  ORIGIN  AND    EVOLUTION    OF    ETHICS 

the  result  is  achieved  outside  of  the  influence  of  environment 
and  therefore  contradicts  the  theory  of  Determinism.  The  an- 
sv^er  is,  that  the  voluntary  teaching  of  morality  is  itself  deter- 
mined by  the  influence  of  environment  upon  the  w^ill  of  the 
teacher.  Again,  it  may  be  said  that,  if  the  will  is  determined  by 
environment  and  the  conduct  of  the  one  taught  is  also  so  deter- 
mined, it  is  useless  for  us  to  voluntarily  undertake  to  teach  mor- 
ality or  influence  others  to  conduct  their  lives  in  a  moral  man- 
ner, as  nature  w^ill  determine  that  result  without  our  interference. 
The  answer  is,  that  nature  will  not  do  so,  because  our  teaching 
and  influence  is  nature's  own  means  of  achieving  the  result. 
And  nature  induces  us  to  become  this  means  by  conferring  upon 
us  happiness,  pleasure,  or  satisfaction  of  mind  or  "  conscience, 
by  the  performance  of  the  things  necessary  to  attain  the  end 
sought. 

Again,  the  objector  may  say  that  as  evolution  necessarily  is 
by  revolution,  and  disintegration,  decline  and  retrogression  nec- 
essarily follows  integration,  growth  and  progress,  it  is  useless  to 
make  efforts  to  promote  and  continue  the  constructive,  progres- 
sive, upward  movement  because  the  retrogressive,  downward, 
destructive  movement  must  necessarily  come  in  spite  of  those 
effortSo  But  to  this  the  answer  is  simple.  There  is  a  homely 
old  adage  commonly  accepted  as  a  truism,  that  "  half  a  loaf  is 
better  than  no  loaf."  In  this  case  our  acts  in  promoting  morality 
and  progress  are  directly  and  immediately  (comparatively)  bene- 
ficial to  ourselves  and  to  our  associates.  To  illustrate,  we  feed 
our  infants  and  children  to  the  end  that  their  bodies  may  grow 
to  full  manhood  size  and  their  lives  continue  to  the  full  age  of 
man,  though  we  realize  that  after  all  in  time  their  bodies  will 
decline,  die  and  disintegrate.  We  send  our  children  to  school 
and  teach  them  at  home  though  we  realizp  that  after  all  in  old 
age  they  will  become  imbecile,  lose  their  memory,  "  go  into 
dotage,"  as  we  say,  and  "  second  childhood,"  and  finally  and 
inevitably  go  out  as  the  flame  of  the  candle  expires  when  the 
wick  and  the  wax  have  been  consumed.  We  eat,  drink  and 
labor  for  ourselves  today,  though  we  know  that  tomorrow  we  die. 


THE  ORIGIN  AND   EVOLUTION   OF   ETHICS  161 

To  do  this  affords  us  happiness,  the  conscious,  proximate  end  of 
all  human  effort.  We  take  care  to  secure  this  end  though  we 
disinterestedly  leave  "  nature  '  to  secure  the  ultimate  end  of  our 
activities — the  conservation  and  propagation  of  life,  carried  on 
within  our  bodies  and  minds  sub-consciously.  We  eat,  drink 
and  indulge  in  sexual  congress  not  directly  to  nourish  our  bodies 
and  propagate  the  species,  but  to  obtain  pleasure  or  happiness, 
which  the  whole  world,  with  but  a  single  exception,  or  at  most 
but  very  few  exceptions,  has  believed  to  be  the  chief  good,  the 
end  of  all  right  conduct,  the  summum  bonum  of  the  ethics  of  the 
master  philosophers.  The  reason  is  good — a  provision  of  nature 
—  and  for  this  very  same  reason  we  are  justifiable  and  "  in  duty 
bound  "  to  promote  morality  and  abridge  crime,  teach  ethics  and 
cultivate  habits  of  good  conduct. 


OF  THE 

CNIVERStTY 

OF 


